Most people living in the United States simply do not realize what is really going on out there.

All over the world, supplies of essential materials are getting very tight.

Even though this war is only a little over one month old, CNN is telling us that we could soon be facing “a shortage of nearly everything”…

One month into the war in Iran, a growing shortage of crude oil is threatening to morph into something worse: a shortage of nearly everything.

This isn’t some rumor on social media.

This is CNN.

One of the most powerful news organizations in the entire world is openly admitting that widespread global shortages are rapidly approaching.

According to CNN’s report, people in South Korea are already panic-buying trash bags, and manufacturers in Taiwan are already completely running out of plastic…

In South Korea, where people have been panic-buying trash bags, the government has encouraged event organizers to minimize use of disposable items. Taiwan has started a hotline for manufacturers that have run out of plastic, while its rice farmers told local media they may hike prices because they can’t get vacuum-sealed bags.

In Japan, the oil crisis has sparked fears that patients with chronic kidney failure won’t be able to get treatment due to a lack of plastic medical tubes used in hemodialysis. Malaysian glove manufacturers say a dearth of a petroleum byproduct needed to make rubber latex is threatening global supplies of medical gloves.

“This spills into everything very, very quickly: beer, noodles, chips, toys, cosmetics,” said Dan Martin, co-head of business intelligence at Dezan Shira & Associates, an advisory firm that helps international businesses expand in Asia.

That’s because plastic caps, crates, snack bags and containers are becoming more difficult to procure. Petroleum derivatives are also needed to make adhesives for footwear and furniture, industrial lubricants for machinery and solvents for paints and cleaning processes, Martin added.

I was floored when I first read that.

We are just a little over one month into this war.

What will things look like three or four months from now if this war is still raging?

Just about everything that we buy either contains plastic or comes wrapped in plastic.

If you sit down and think about this for a while, it will hit you like a ton of bricks.

We are in an enormous amount of trouble.

The only way out would be for this war to come to a rapid conclusion.

But that isn’t going to happen.

The IRGC is running the show in Iran, and they will not accept any of President Trump’s offers.

The IRGC has issued their own list of demands which the U.S. and Israel can never possibly accept, and they have announced that traffic through the Strait of Hormuz “will never return to its former state” even after the war ends…

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Naval Command said in a post to X overnight that the Strait of Hormuz “will never return to its former state, especially for America and Israel.”

“The navy of the IRGC is in the process of completing the operational preparations for the announced plan of Iran’s officials for the new order in the Persian Gulf,” the statement said.

Iran wants to be given control over traffic through the Strait of Hormuz as part of any potential deal.

There is no way that is going to happen.

So the war is going to continue, and control of the Strait of Hormuz is going to have to be taken from Iran by force.

Sadly, global supplies of oil are just going to keep getting tighter and tighter, and fuel prices are going to continue to rise.

Here in the United States, the average price of a gallon of gasoline has already risen by 86 cents over the past month…

The national average now stands at $4.11 per gallon, up about 86 cents from a month ago, according to AAA. Costs are climbing across nearly every region, with some states already well above the U.S. average.

On the West Coast, drivers are seeing the highest costs, with prices reaching $5.92 per gallon in California and $5.37 in Washington. Meanwhile, on the East Coast, gas prices have surpassed $4 in several areas, including $4.27 in Washington, D.C., and $4.06 in New York.

If the war cannot be brought to a quick end, this is just the beginning.

Even more importantly, the average price of a gallon of diesel has risen by $1.45 over the past month…

Diesel has climbed to $5.61, up about $1.45 over the past month. As a key fuel for freight, shipping, and public transportation, it is particularly sensitive to refining capacity constraints and global supply disruptions.

Our farms run on diesel.

Nearly our entire trucking industry runs on diesel.

The price of nearly everything that you purchase on a regular basis is affected by the price of diesel, and so this is really bad news for all of us.

In California, the average price of a gallon of diesel has reached a whopping $7.67 per gallon…

The average price of the fuel – used to power everything from trucks to industrial machinery – sat at a statewide $7.67 per gallon Sunday, according to the American Automobile Association, also the most Californians have ever paid.

Now experts are warning the huge surge is going to hit consumers in the pocket by summer, with everyday goods set to skyrocket.

Just weeks ago, on March 2, diesel in California was $3.90 a gallon, meaning prices have doubled in a month.

Jet fuel prices are going through the roof too.

In fact, they have approximately doubled since the end of February…

Jet fuel prices, as a result, reached $195 at the end of March, up nearly $100 from the end of February when the war began. And as the war drags on, jet fuel is getting harder to come by for countries that don’t produce their own or have limited supplies.

International Energy Agency Executive Director Fatih Biro said during a podcast interview earlier this week that the loss of oil in April would be twice what was lost in March, resulting in a growing scarcity of jet fuel and diesel.

“We are seeing that in Asia, but soon, I think, in April or May, it would come to Europe,” he said.

Supplies of jet fuel have gotten extremely tight.

We are already witnessing chaos in some parts of Asia, and we are being warned that Europe could be next…

June Goh, a senior oil market analyst at Sparta Commodities, said in a post on X that jet fuel requires specialized storage, which means there is less stored than other products, like gasoline.

“Travel has gotten a lot more expensive in Asia, with many airlines adding fuel surcharges or downright canceling flights,” she wrote. “Europe is facing imminent jet fuel supply shortages. Brace yourselves.”

If you need to fly somewhere, I would do it soon.

Flights have been canceled all over Asia, and now European airlines are starting to follow suit…

Lufthansa is also prepping for the worst, a spokesperson told Bloomberg. The company has teams developing crisis response plans, and could ground up to 40 aircraft, the spokesperson said.

A spokesperson for Scandinavian Airlines said it would cut about 1,000 flights due to the surge in jet fuel costs, The Wall Street Journal reported.

This is not something that is going to happen someday.

This is happening now.

And even if the war ended tomorrow, conditions would not go back to the way that they were before.

In fact, Mark Zandi is warning that we might not ever see pre-war prices again…

“I don’t think we’re going back to the pre-war prices for the foreseeable future,” said Mark Zandi, the chief economist of Moody’s Analytics and among the first economists to predict the 2008 financial crisis, speaking with Politico for its report Monday. “Certainly won’t be this year, won’t even be next year. Might not be ever.”

There is no way that global energy markets can simply snap back to pre-war conditions.

Too much energy infrastructure has already been destroyed.

If Iran does not agree to make a deal before Trump’s Tuesday deadline, things will get a whole lot worse.

This is the greatest challenge to the global economy that most of us have seen in our entire lifetimes.

For now, most people living in the western world continue to believe that everything will work out just fine somehow, but reality will give them a wake up call soon enough.

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 “A Shortage Of Nearly Everything” Is Coming If The War Does Not End Soon – In South Korea, People Are Already Panic-Buying Trash Bags appeared first on The Economic Collapse.

Gold and silver prices lost ground on Wednesday as investors booked profits after a historic annual rally and exchange operator CME Group hiked the margins on precious metal futures for the second time in the space of a week.

They probably thought that it was best to pull a stunt like this during the holidays while less people are paying attention.

A statement was released by CME Group which said that this latest move to hike margin requirements was done “to ensure adequate collateral coverage”…

CME Group, one of the world’s largest trading floors for commodities, said Tuesday that margins for gold, silver, platinum and palladium would increase again after the close of business Wednesday.

It said in a statement that the decision was made “as per the normal review of market volatility to ensure adequate collateral coverage.”

Give me a break.

We all know why this was done.

What we are witnessing is literally a conspiracy to force the price of silver down.

They knew that when they suddenly increased margin requirements, it would create a squeeze and force precious metals prices lower…

One reason behind recent declines in silver, including the stark fall on Wednesday, is changes to trading rules implemented by exchange operator CME Group, which hosts widely traded silver futures contracts.

Traders operating in CME’s derivatives market must put down cash to support their trades, with the exact amount or margin required varying. Amid volatile trading, the CME raised margin requirements effective Monday for precious metals including silver, and announced that margin requirements would rise again after Wednesday.

If traders cannot put up more cash, their positions are often forcibly closed, or sold, typically at unfavorable prices. This can cause a wave of selling that pushes prices down further, taking some of the shine out of silver—for now.

I am so disgusted by this.

The first margin hike didn’t get the results that they wanted, and so they did it again.

Shame on them.

We are supposed to be at least pretending that we have some semblance of a free market system left.

But even after this desperate attempt to stop the bleeding, the price of silver is still up more than 140 percent in 2025…

Even after sharp declines on Wednesday, silver prices have gained more than 140% this year and remain relatively close to all-time highs above $82 reached on Sunday.

And most analysts are still projecting that the price of silver will continue to rise in 2026 because the fundamentals for silver are exceedingly favorable…

Yet there are also fundamentals behind silver’s remarkable rally this year.

The precious metal, like gold—up almost two-thirds in 2025 to record levels—is considered a store of value and a hedge against the dollar, which weakened this year amid falling U.S. interest rates.

Silver also benefits from industrial demand typical of the current moment, including uses in solar panels, electric vehicles, and data centers powering artificial intelligence.

If the AI boom were to burst, that could change the outlook for silver.

But right now the AI revolution is steaming ahead.

And the U.S. dollar is probably going to continue to get even weaker in 2026.

In 2025, the U.S. dollar index has fallen by nearly 10 percent…

The dollar continues to face a challenging backdrop in 2026 following this year’s sharp depreciation, Charles Stanley’s Abbas Owainati says in a note. The dollar’s fall this year reflects concerns over long-term fiscal sustainability, an erosion of the currency’s safe haven status amid unpredictable policy, increased currency hedging by non-U.S. investors and changes in capital flows. The dollar could stay under pressure next year as the Federal Reserve is expected to cut interest rates further, he says. A weaker dollar could support emerging markets equities by easing external debt burdens, improving capital flows and boosting local currency returns, he says. The DXY dollar index trades flat at 98.008. It has fallen nearly 10% in the year to date.

The Trump administration doesn’t mind that the dollar has been getting weaker because it makes our exports more appealing to the rest of the world.

But when the U.S. dollar gets weaker, our purchasing power goes down.

A weaker dollar is one of the primary reasons why we find ourselves in an affordability crisis that never seems to end.

So if the U.S. dollar continues to lose value next year that will not be good news for millions of deeply struggling American households, but it will be great news for silver investors.

In addition, Martin Armstrong says that there are a number of geopolitical factors that will help move the price of silver higher during the months ahead…

When it comes to metal, Armstrong says, “People who know war and crisis are coming are buying metals. . .. We have creative destruction. You have AI coming in and you have unemployment rising and you have GDP rising. . .. You have shortages in commodities on top of this. . .. Then you have geopolitical nonsense. Anthony Blinken (Secretary of State in the Biden Administration) put sanctions on Russia. Look at the metals. What did it do? It cut off the supply of gold, silver and platinum coming out of Russia. Now, you have China putting in a ban on exporting silver as of January 1, 2026. This is rather important. China controls about 60% of the supply of silver. . .. This is one of the reasons why silver jumped up dramatically. This is a perfect storm. On top of all this, NATO is there only for war. That is it. . .. Socrates is still saying Europe will lose badly in a war with Russia.”

Armstrong sees a bull market for gold, silver and other metals for years ahead. One big reason is shortages in the metals. Armstrong says, “I don’t see these shortages going away. The bull market is more likely to go into 2032. It will be volatile, and then you’ve got war coming. Once you get into war, prices are going to go up even more. It’s all a mess. This is a perfect storm.”

Yes, we certainly are facing “a perfect storm”, and I am entirely convinced that the year in front of us is going to be absolutely nuts.

In the short-term, there will be plenty of opportunities for savvy investors to capitalize on all of the global chaos that we are witnessing.

Some people will make a lot of money, and of course others will lose a lot of money.

But in the end, the entire system is going to come crashing down all around us.

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 In A Desperate Attempt To Stop The Bleeding, A Conspiracy To Force The Price Of Silver Down Is Unfolding Right In Front Of Our Eyes appeared first on The Economic Collapse.

Yesterday, I specifically warned that we need to keep “a close eye on Japanese bond yields”.

Today, tepid demand for 20-year Japanese bonds pushed Japanese bond yields into extremely alarming territory…

The Tokyo tremor began on Tuesday, when the government tried to sell 1 trillion yen (£5.2bn) of March 2045 bonds and encountered lacklustre demand.

The average bid-to-cover ratio, which measures investor appetite, dropped to 2.5 – the lowest since 2012. The 1.14-point gap between the average and lowest-accepted prices, known as the “tail”, was the longest since 1987.

Investors responded by pushing the Japanese government 20-year yield to the highest this century, and the 30-year yield to a record.

This is a monster story.

I don’t understand why this isn’t front page news all over the planet.

The shaking of the financial system in Japan is unlike anything that we have seen in decades.

Of course the U.S. financial system is being shaken as well.

Moody’s just downgraded our credit rating, and Treasury bond yields continue to rise…

The 30-year Treasury bond yield last traded around 5.08%, the highest level going back to October 2023. The benchmark 10-year Treasury note yield traded at 4.59%.

Long-dated bonds sold off as traders worried a new budget bill would worsen the U.S. deficit. The measure is expected to pass as lawmakers reach a compromise on state and local tax deductions as investors head into Speaker Mike Johnson’s Memorial Day deadline. Yields spiked even higher after a poor afternoon auction for 20-year debt, raising fears investors may be losing their appetite for funding America’s deficits.

Just like we are witnessing in Japan, investors are quickly losing their appetite for our bonds.

We are already spending about a trillion dollars a year just in interest on the national debt, and now our borrowing costs could be headed a lot higher.

This is extremely bad news.

One analyst is warning that we have entered a time when “bond traders are willing to punish high-debt nations with large deficits”…

“The pressure on both Japanese and US bonds this week is a sign bond traders are willing to punish high-debt nations with large deficits,” says Kathleen Brooks, an analyst at XTB.

In other words, the party is ending.

But our politicians in Washington don’t seem to have gotten the memo.

The spending bill that is currently going through Congress would add another 20 trillion dollars to the national debt in the years ahead.

That is suicidal.

We just can’t do that.

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

Needless to say, the Europeans are in the same boat, and Google AI says that their bond yields have been rising as well this month…

European government bond yields have generally increased this month, particularly for longer-dated bonds. For example, TradingView reports that Eurozone government bond yields rose on Wednesday due to oil price increases, with Germany’s 10-year yield up 4 basis points. Over the month, Germany’s 10-year yield has increased by 18 basis points, while the UK’s 10-year yield has increased by 19 basis points.

What we are witnessing is truly a worldwide phenomenon.

The global trade war has made everyone very jittery.  GDP projections have turned negative all over the planet, and some nations such as Japan have already entered contraction territory.

In an environment where global economic activity is slower, that is going to make it even more difficult for national governments to bring in sufficient revenue to service their debts.

So investors are demanding higher rates, and that is going to push up borrowing costs.

Of course higher borrowing costs will put additional pressure on the finances of national governments.

We could potentially be entering a vicious cycle of higher rates and higher borrowing costs, and that wouldn’t be good for any of us.

If interest rates rise too quickly, that could spark a major derivatives crisis.  According to Google AI, interest rate derivatives account for “about 80% of the total global OTC derivatives notional outstanding”…

The global market for interest rate derivatives (IRDs) is a significant portion of the overall derivatives market. At the end of 2023, the notional outstanding for IRDs was approximately $579 trillion. This figure represented about 80% of the total global OTC derivatives notional outstanding, as of mid-year 2023. IRDs, including interest rate swaps, forward rate agreements (FRAs), and options, are used by financial institutions to manage interest rate risk.

A major derivatives crisis would be extremely destructive.

For a moment, try to imagine a giant financial tsunami that smashes one enormous financial institution after another with no end in sight.

That is what we are potentially facing.

For years, I have been warning about the enormous amount of exposure that the largest U.S. banks have to derivatives.

But for a long time, it seemed like everything would be just fine.

Unfortunately, a day of reckoning is now upon us, and it appears that this crisis could soon get really, really messy.

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 We Are Looking Down The Barrel Of A Worldwide Credit Market Crisis That Threatens To Be Absolutely Horrific appeared first on The Economic Collapse.

More than 1.4 billion people live in China.  We send them massive amounts of soy and pork in a normal year, and that has been a very profitable arrangement for U.S. farmers.  Unfortunately, demand has dried up due to the trade war, and this has thrown the U.S. agriculture industry into a state of chaos…

Soy has been severely impacted, with a 125% tariff imposed by China causing a steep decline in exports. Although recent comments from Trump hint at possible tariff reductions, prices for soy derivatives like tofu and animal feed have already climbed. Pork exports have suffered from tariffs reaching up to 72%, leading to higher domestic prices for bacon and pork chops. Dairy products, including cheese and milk, have seen prices spike after China and Mexico introduced new tariffs, affecting popular varieties like cheddar and mozzarella.

Apple exports were curtailed by tariffs from China and India, causing price hikes for varieties such as Gala and Fuji. California’s almond industry has also been hit hard, with China applying a 50% tariff; the additional logistics costs have pushed up prices for products like almond milk. Lobster prices have become increasingly volatile domestically after exports to China fell sharply under tariffs of up to 35%.

There were a few months during the pandemic that got a bit crazy, but if high tariffs persist we are going to witness a meltdown unlike anything we have ever experienced before.

The executive director of the Agriculture Transportation Coalition told CNBC that what we are facing “is a full-blown crisis already”…

Peter Friedmann, executive director of the Agriculture Transportation Coalition, or AgTC, a leading export trade group for farmers, told CNBC the number of canceled purchases of U.S. agricultural products should not be described as approaching a crisis. “It is a full-blown crisis already,” he said.

Data released by the U.S. Department of Agriculture on Thursday revealed China made its biggest cancellation of pork orders since 2020, halting a shipment of 12,000 tons of pork.

Even though the tariffs have only been in place for less than a month, the Agriculture Transportation Coalition is reporting that many of its members have already been hit by “massive” financial losses…

AgTC said “massive” financial losses are already being felt by its members as a result of the trade war, based on reports it is receiving from member companies.

It is easy to say that all of the soy, pork and corn that China normally purchases should just be sold to someone else.

But the truth is that “there are no other markets that can quickly replace China’s demand”…

Agricultural exporters warned that there are no other markets that can quickly replace China’s demand and absorb the volume, and that is already affecting prices.

“We have diverted employees and production to other (less profitable) production and dramatically slowed down purchasing from independent venders (loggers, truckers, sawmills),” one lumber exporter reported to AgTC. Some products have already declined 20% in market value, the exporter reported, which it said will influence inventory planning and future investments.

On the flip side, U.S. demand for clothing that is imported from China is plummeting dramatically.

Temu has made a ton of money by selling U.S. consumers fashionable clothes at super cheap prices, but now extremely high tariff rates are forcing Temu to add “import charges” to most orders…

Chinese e-tailer Temu has started adding “import charges” of about 145% in response to President Donald Trump’s tariffs.

The fees, which began cropping up over the weekend after price hikes went into effect on Friday, cost more than the individual products consumers are buying and can more than double the price of a typical order.

For example, a summer dress sold on Temu for $18.47 will cost $44.68 after $26.21 in import charges are added to the bill, a 142% surcharge, a CNBC analysis shows. A child’s bathing suit priced at $12.44 will cost shoppers $31.12 when the $18.68 import charge is taken into account, a staggering 150% fee. A handheld vacuum cleaner listed at $16.93 now costs $40.11 when factoring in an import charge of $21.68, which is a roughly 137% markup.

Everything that we buy from China is going to be a lot more expensive from now on, and that is only going to intensify our cost of living crisis.

Inflation has been a major problem for years, and an increasing number of people are turning to debt in order to make ends meet.

Even before the tariffs went into effect, one survey found that the percentage of Americans that have been using “buy now pay later” services has been rapidly growing…

In a survey conducted April 2-3 of 2,000 U.S. consumers ages 18 to 79, around half reported having used buy now, pay later services. Of those consumers, 25% of respondents said they were using BNPL loans to buy groceries, up from 14% in 2024 and 21% in 2023, the firm said.

Meanwhile, 41% of respondents said they made a late payment on a BNPL loan in the past year, up from 34% in the year prior, the survey found.

Those numbers are extremely alarming.

As a society, we are not ready for a major economic downturn at all.

In fact, almost a quarter of the entire U.S. population is currently dealing with “unmanageable” levels of debt…

Nearly 1 in 4 U.S. adults currently have “unmanageable” debt, as of April 1, according to a survey of 1,000 respondents. Unmanageable debt is defined as when an individual is forced to choose between debt payments and basic necessities.

If you are facing severe financial stress at this moment, I want you to understand that there are millions of others that are just like you.

We are just going to have to batten down the hatches, because the economic storm that we have entered is not going to be easy to endure.

Decades of very foolish decisions have brought our country to this point, and now a day of reckoning has arrived.

So I hope that you have been preparing for this time, because things are only going to get crazier from here.

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 “It Is A Full-Blown Crisis Already”: Farmers Cry Out For Help As Massive Financial Losses Pile Up And Demand For U.S. Agricultural Products Disappears appeared first on The Economic Collapse.

After the chaos that we witnessed on Friday, I wasn’t sure that we would see even more carnage on Monday, but that is precisely what transpired…

The Dow Jones Industrial Average declined 1,033.99 points, or 2.6%, to close at 38,703.27. The S&P 500 fell 3%, ending at 5,186.33. Both averages notched their worst daily losses since September 2022.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite shed 3.43%, finishing at 16,200.08.

At one point the Nasdaq was down more than 1,000 points.

That is the first time in history that has ever happened.

If you can believe it, there was a time early on Monday when tech companies had collectively lost close to a trillion dollars in market capitalization.

Tech stocks bounced back a bit the rest of the day, but the “Magnificent 7” are still collectively down about 3 trillion dollars from their all-time record high market capitalizations.

That is a lot of money.

Over the last three trading sessions, the Dow, the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq have all gotten absolutely hammered…

The Dow fell 5.24% over the last three trading days, turning in its worst three-day loss since Jun. 14, 2022, when it tumbled 5.91% in three days.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite dropped 7.95% in the period. This marked the Nasdaq’s biggest three-day fall since Jun.13, 2022, when it tanked 10.57% in a three-day period.

The S&P 500 lost 6.08% in three days for its sharpest pullback in that span since Jun.14, 2022, when it shed 7.03%.

But in Japan things have been even worse.

On Monday, the Japanese experienced a stock market crash of epic proportions…

In Asia overnight, Japan stocks confirmed a bear market as Asia-Pacific investors had their first chance to react to the sour jobs figures in the U.S. from Friday. The 12.4% loss on the Nikkei, which closed at 31,458.42, was the worst day for the index since the “Black Monday” of 1987 hit Wall Street. The loss of 4,451.28 points on the index was also the largest in terms of points in its entire history.

The good news is that we are due for a dead cat bounce.

As I write this article, Japanese stocks are bouncing back in a major way, and the same thing could happen to U.S. stocks when the markets open here.

So why is this happening?

Some are blaming the bad economic news that we have been getting and inaction by the Federal Reserve.

Others are suggesting that what we are witnessing “is the result of investors having to untangle complicated, heavily leveraged trades”…

But economists say the stock slide is not a surefire sign that a recession is ahead. The current sell-off, they say, is the result of investors having to untangle complicated, heavily leveraged trades that have artificially boosted stock values.

The truth is that a lot of factors are at play.

But after several years of one way traffic, a lot of people are quite shocked by how rapidly stock prices have started to move in the other direction…

“Investors have gotten so used to the stock market only going one way that now people are suddenly realizing, ‘Oh, stocks can also go down?’ ” said Torsten Sløk, chief economist at Apollo Global Management. “This is a situation where one weak data point – Friday’s jobs numbers – brought the bears out of hibernation.”

For a long time, the Federal Reserve and other global central banks were artificially propping up the financial markets.

Now that artificial support has been withdrawn, and many are having difficulty “adjusting to the end of easy money globally”…

“This is not the recession train; it’s just a good old-fashioned market panic,” said Joe Brusuelas, principal and chief economist for RSM US. “This is not a D.C.-inspired event, about a slowing job market or the Fed being behind the curve. It’s about a larger regime change, where investors are adjusting to the end of easy money globally.”

Of course the Fed could choose to intervene at any time.

At this moment there is growing optimism that the Fed will come riding to the rescue with an emergency rate cut.

In fact, many bond traders are placing very large bets that this is about to happen…

Bond traders are piling into bets that the US economy is on the verge of deteriorating so quickly that the Federal Reserve will need to start easing monetary policy aggressively — potentially before their next scheduled meeting — to head off a recession.

I wouldn’t recommend holding your breath waiting for that to take place.

The Dow would probably have to fall to at least 35,000 before the Fed would even consider an emergency rate cut.

But I do believe that one will probably be coming at their next scheduled meeting.

Of course a rate cut isn’t exactly going to save us from what is eventually coming.

As James Howard Kunstler has aptly noted, “everything that can break is breaking”…

The wait is over. Everything that can break is breaking: stock markets, bond markets, the galaxy of derivatives — bets on this and that, which will never be honored. Banks are next. Gold and silver are hanging in there for dear life just now, because they’re actually worth something.

This doesn’t mean that every day is going to be a down day for the financial markets.

During bull markets, the waters are calm and stock prices tend to rise slowly and steadily.

During bear markets, the waters get very choppy and there are wild ups and downs.

So if the Dow jumps hundreds of points in a single day, don’t think that the crisis is over.  A huge swing either way is a bad sign.

Also, please understand that we are not even close to the center of the storm yet.

What we are experiencing right now is just early turbulence.  The real pain is not likely to arrive for quite some time.

Michael’s new book entitled “Chaos” 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 “Chaos” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com. He has also written seven other books that are available on Amazon.com including “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 This Isn’t The End For The Financial Markets – The Truth Is That This Is Just The Beginning Of The Chaos… appeared first on The Economic Collapse.

According to a report that was just released by the Institute of International Finance, the total amount of debt in the world has reached a grand total of 315 trillion dollars…

The world is mired in $315 trillion of debt, according to a report from the Institute of International Finance.

This global debt wave has been the biggest, fastest and most wide-ranging rise in debt since World War II, coinciding with the Covid-19 pandemic.

“This increase marks the second consecutive quarterly rise and was primarily driven by emerging markets, where debt surged to an unprecedented high of over $105 trillion—$55 trillion more than a decade ago,” the IIF said in its quarterly Global Debt Monitor report released in May.

We are in the midst of the greatest global debt binge in the history of the world.

Household debt is at a level we have never seen before, business debt is at a level we have never seen before, and government debt is at a level we have never seen before…

Of the $315 trillion debt stock, household debt, which includes mortgages, credit cards and student debt, among others, amounted to $59.1 trillion.

Business debt, which corporations use to finance their operations and growth, stood at $164.5 trillion, with the financial sector alone making up $70.4 trillion of that amount. Public debt made up the rest at $91.4 trillion.

For the moment, conditions are at least somewhat relatively stable, and so everything seems fine.

But it won’t take much to push us over the edge.

For example, during a recent interview with Greg Hunter, Chris Martenson suggested that a Chinese invasion of Taiwan could trigger a sudden meltdown of the bond market…

In a new market meltdown, Dr. Martenson sees chaos and gives a hypothetical example: “China attacks Taiwan, and there is a 10 sigma move in the bond market. Oh no, all these derivatives have blown up. These people are supposed to be winners, and these people are supposed to be all losers. No, no, they don’t have any money for that stuff. It’s too complicated. I don’t think anybody understands how this works anymore. I could not find anybody who could tell me the whole thing. I could find people who knew bits and pieces, but they knew their slice. . . . I am trying to stitch this thing all together. I get uncomfortable when I can’t answer the most basic questions, and that is how much risk is there in the system and where is it?”

In short, Dr. Martenson is worried about the whole financial system going down. Dr. Martenson says, “Yes, I am worried about the whole system going down, and that leads to all sorts of speculation. . . . Imagine this, we wake up one day, and the markets are not open on Monday. Oh no, glitch. Problem. Then, it’s two days and not open, three days not open. People are getting worried. Friday, and the markets are still not open. Monday comes, and they say it’s a super big problem, and we don’t know how to resolve it. . . . They offer you 100% value today in a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) account or you can wait it out and hope it gets resolved, and it might take a decade.”

The moment that the Chinese invade Taiwan, the U.S. and China will be at war.

This is one of the three major wars that I have been warning about for a long time.

Unfortunately, the Chinese continue to become more aggressive toward Taiwan.  In fact, late last week they conducted the biggest practice run that we have seen so far…

China wrapped up a two-day, large-scale military exercise Friday after its forces deployed 111 aircraft and 46 naval vessels to areas around Taiwan.

Taiwan’s National Defense Ministry said 82 Chinese military aircraft crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait and some got very close to the 24-nautical-mile line that Taiwan uses to define its contiguous zone.

The military drills, branded as a “punishment” for Taiwan’s new president, Lai Ching-te, who China views as separatist, focused on conducting joint sea-air combat-readiness patrol, joint seizure of comprehensive battlefield control and joint precision strikes on key targets involving China’s army, navy, air force and rocket force.

Meanwhile, both sides just continue to escalate matters in Ukraine.

It is being reported that French forces will soon be heading to Ukraine to help “train” Ukrainian troops, and that is a very ominous development…

Ukraine’s military says it is ‘welcoming’ French trainers in Ukraine, in new remarks which strongly suggest that for the first time France is deploying its troops to Ukraine soil. This marks the beginning of major ‘boots on the ground’ escalation in a formal, public capacity by a NATO state.

“Ukraine’s top commander said on Monday he had signed paperwork allowing French military instructors to visit Ukrainian training centers soon,” Reuters reported Monday, referencing head of the armed forces Col. Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi.

“I am pleased to welcome France’s initiative to send instructors to Ukraine to train Ukrainian servicemen,” Syrskyi said following video link talks with French defense minister Sebastien Lecornu.

We are getting closer and closer to the day when western forces will be in direct conflict with Russian forces, and this is something that I have been warning about for many years.

The third major war that will greatly shake the entire planet is the war that has erupted in the Middle East.

Israeli forces keep going even deeper into Rafah, and the IDF and Hezbollah continue to exchange fire along the northern front.

Eventually this war is going to escalate to an extremely dangerous level, and we could potentially see that happen by the end of this calendar year.

In addition to military conflict, major pestilences are also a factor that could turn the global financial system upside down.

Earlier today, we learned that over 4 million chickens at just one farm in Iowa will have to be destroyed because of a bird flu outbreak there…

More than 4 million chickens in Iowa will have to be killed after a case of the highly pathogenic bird flu was detected at a large egg farm, the state announced Tuesday.

Crews are in the process of killing 4.2 million chickens after the disease was found at a farm in Sioux County, Iowa, making it the latest in a yearslong outbreak that now is affecting dairy cattle as well. Last week, the virus was confirmed at an egg farm west of Minneapolis, Minnesota, leading to the slaughter of nearly 1.4 million chickens.

Overall, 92.34 million birds have been killed since the outbreak began in 2022, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Please keep in mind that the figure that the U.S. Department of Agriculture is quoting is just for the United States.

Overall, hundreds of millions of birds have been killed around the globe since the beginning of this pandemic.

Let’s just hope that H5N1 does not mutate into a form that can spread easily from human to human, because if that happens our planet will be paralyzed by fear on a much higher level than we experienced during the last pandemic.

It is also being reported that a hemorrhagic fever that can cause “Ebola-like bleeding” is rapidly spreading among rodents in northern Europe…

A potentially deadly virus that can jump from animals to humans is already sweeping through northern Europe, putting the UK highly at risk.

The horrifying virus can be transmitted from rodents to humans and cause Ebola-like bleeding, according to new research.

Bank voles in Sweden carrying the pathogen have already infected two people, causing them to come down with a Viral Hemorrhagic Fever (VHF) – the same type of illness as Ebola.

I will be closely watching for any human cases of that disease, because any type of hemorrhagic fever that starts spreading widely among humans would cause a tremendous amount of panic.

On top of everything else, I believe that we should brace ourselves for unexpected natural disasters in the months ahead.

For example, our sun has been exceedingly active lately, and we are being warned that more coronal mass ejections may soon be heading our way…

Earth could be hit by another powerful solar storm this week that is predicted to trigger radio blackouts and incredible northern light displays.

Earlier this month, the sun unleashed the most powerful streams of plasma, known as coronal mass ejections (CMEs), in 20 years, causing communication disruptions worldwide.

The sunspot that caused the chaos has swung back around and released a powerful flare toward Earth’s region on Monday.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) a 60 percent chance of radio blackouts on Tuesday and throughout the rest of the week.

Before this current solar cycle is over, I believe that solar activity will make a lot more headlines.

So much is happening right now, but what we have experienced so far is just the tip of the iceberg compared to what is coming.

It won’t be too long before we are being hit by one catastrophic event after another, and that is going to cause tremendous chaos for the global financial system.

So take advantage of this period of relative stability while you still can, because we are moving into a time when everything that can be shaken will be shaken.

Michael’s new book entitled “Chaos” 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 extremely controversial new book entitled “Chaos” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com. He has also written seven other books that are available on Amazon.com including “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 The World Has Accumulated A $315 Trillion Mountain Of Debt, And Global Events Will Soon Bring It Crashing Down appeared first on The Economic Collapse.

But even though we are absolutely flooding the system with cash stolen from future generations of Americans, economic performance has been extremely anemic.

On Thursday, the government reported that the U.S. economy grew at a 1.6 percent annualized rate during the first quarter of this year…

Gross domestic product, the broadest measure of goods and services produced across the economy, grew by 1.6% on an annualized basis in the three-month period from January through March, the Commerce Department said in its first reading of the data on Thursday.

That is much lower than the 2.4% increase forecast by LSEG economists and marks a sharp slowdown from the 3.4% pace seen during the fourth quarter. It is the slowest pace of growth in two years.

“This was a worst of both worlds report — slower than expected growth, higher than expected inflation,” said David Donabedian, chief investment officer of CIBC Private Wealth US. “The biggest setback is the acceleration in core inflation, and in particular, the services sector rising above a 5% annual rate.”

Even if the GDP numbers were accurate, and I don’t believe that they are, that would still be absolutely terrible.

At this point, some pundits are using the term “slowdown” to describe what is happening to the economy…

Some analysts believe Thursday’s weaker-than-expected report signals the start of a broader slowdown in the economy.

Personally, I am entirely convinced that if honest numbers were being used they would indicate that GDP growth is negative.

But in any event, pretty much everyone agrees that we are heading in the wrong direction.

In response to this bad economic news, stock prices plummeted.

At one point on Thursday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down more than 600 points, and it closed the day down 375 points…

Stocks tumbled Thursday after the latest U.S. economic data showed a sharp slowdown in growth and pointed to persistent inflation.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average slid 375.12 points, or 0.98%, to close at 38,085.80, weighed down by steep declines in Caterpillar and IBM. The S&P 500 dropped 0.46% to finish the session at 5,048.42, and the Nasdaq Composite lost 0.64% to 15,611.76.

Not too long ago, the Dow was flirting with 40,000.

Since that time, it has lost nearly 2,000 points.

Will this “slide” eventually turn into an avalanche?

What is happening in the bond market is of even greater concern.

The release of the GDP numbers caused U.S. Treasury yields to go completely nuts…

U.S. Treasury yields rose on Thursday after the first-quarter GDP report showed slowing growth and rising consumer prices.

The benchmark 10-year Treasury yield climbed 4.8 basis points to 4.702%, while the rate on the 2-year Treasury gained 6.1 basis points to 4.998%. At their session highs, the yields on both notes hit their highest levels since November.

Let’s keep a close eye on this.

If Treasury yields start swinging too wildly, that is going to have enormous implications for those that trade derivatives.

Shifting gears, we have also just learned that the median price of a home in the U.S. has just hit another brand new record high…

It is more expensive than ever to buy a home in the U.S., according to a new report from the real estate company Redfin.

The median home price hit a record $383,725 during the four-week period ending April 21. That’s up 5.2 percent from a year ago, Redfin found, one of the largest leaps in home prices since October 2022.

Sadly, home ownership is now out of reach for a very large chunk of the population.

If you can believe it, Redfin says that the median monthly housing payment has risen “to a record $2,843”…

The median monthly housing payment also jumped to a record $2,843, up 13 percent from the same period last year.

Chen Zhao, the economic research lead at Redfin, said prospective buyers should “accept that this year is probably not the time to find a dream deal.”

Who can afford a mortgage payment of $2,843 a month?

That is insane.

Home ownership has never been more unaffordable than it is right now, and young adults that are just starting out are being hit the hardest.

Earlier today, I just had to laugh when I came across an article entitled “So you may never own a home. Here’s why maybe that’s … a good thing?”

To me, that sounds eerily similar to “you will own nothing and be happy”.

That particular article is directed at young adults in Canada, but millions of young adults in the U.S. are also wondering if they will be renting for life.

Yes, there are some advantages to renting, but you aren’t building any equity.

And I think that is what the wizards on Wall Street would like to see.

I think that they envision a future in which they own almost all of the homes and the vast majority of us are renters.

The good news, if you want to call it that, is that I don’t think that things will ever get that far.

Our entire system has started to come apart at the seams, and it won’t be too long before it completely crashes.

A lot of the “wealth” that we see on Wall Street is just a mirage.

For the moment, stock prices are absurdly high because there are people out there that are willing to pay those prices.

But when conditions take a dramatic turn for the worse, the buyers will all disappear and so will the absurdly high stock prices.

So enjoy the last days of the bubble while you still can, because the clock is ticking…

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

About the Author: Michael Snyder’s extremely controversial new book entitled “Chaos” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com. He has also written seven other books that are available on Amazon.com including “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.  You can connect with Michael on YouTube, Facebook and Twitter, and sharing his articles on your own social media accounts 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, we strongly urge you to invite Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior today.

The post Is Something Starting To Break? Stocks Plummet And Bonds Go Nuts As Economic Data Disappoints appeared first on The Economic Collapse.

Let’s start with the housing market.  On Friday, we learned that sales of previously owned homes in December 2023 were 6.2 percent lower than they were in December 2022…

Sales of previously owned homes fell 1% in December compared with November to 3.78 million units on a seasonally adjusted annualized basis, according to the National Association of Realtors. Sales were 6.2% lower than in December 2022, marking the lowest level since August 2010.

For 2023 as a whole, sales of previously owned homes were the lowest that we have seen in 28 years…

Home sales fell to their lowest level in 28 years in 2023 as soaring mortgage rates and red-hot prices dampened buyer demand.

Figures from the National Association of Realtors (NAR) show sales of existing properties slid 19 percent last year to 4.09 million – their lowest level since 1995.

Can anyone out there come up with a way to put a positive spin on those numbers?

I certainly can’t.

Meanwhile, 2023 was a year when Americans got further behind on their credit card bills “in 49 of the 50 states”…

The number of people falling behind on their credit card bills increased in 49 of the 50 states last year, a sobering new report reveals.

As inflation took its toll on household budgets, Americans in their millions became delinquent on credit card debt – with some states much more badly affected than others.

According to analysis by WalletHub, the number of borrowers struggling to keep on track of their credit card bills has risen the fastest in Oregon. Between September 2022 and September 2023, delinquencies in the state soared by 51 percent.

Delinquency rates on all forms of credit have been steadily rising from coast to coast.

This will be an important trend to watch in 2024.

Meanwhile, large layoff announcements continue to pile up at a very frightening pace.

For example, Macy’s just announced that it will be laying off a total of 2,350 workers…

Department store chain Macy’s is planning to lay off about 13% of its corporate staff and close five stores in an effort to trim costs and redirect spending to improve the customer experience.

The Wall Street Journal first reported the news on Thursday, adding that the job cuts will total about 2,350 positions, or about 3.5% of Macy’s overall workforce excluding seasonal hires.

And Wayfair is telling us that somewhere around 1,650 of their workers will soon be hitting the bricks…

Wayfair is cutting 13% of its global workforce as the digital home goods retailer continues its efforts to trim down its structure, cut out layers of management and reduce costs after going “overboard” with corporate hiring during the Covid pandemic, it announced Friday.

The company plans to lay off around 1,650 employees, including 19% of its corporate team, with a focus on people in management and leadership positions, Wayfair said.

I apologize in advance if there are some major layoff announcements that I miss in the days ahead.

We are witnessing such a large tsunami of layoffs now that it is virtually impossible to keep up with them all.

On the west coast, employees of the Los Angeles Times are extremely upset about the “massive” layoffs that are reportedly coming…

With “massive” and “significant” layoffs coming soon, “the L.A. Times Guild announced a one-day walkout from both its L.A. and Washington D.C. offices this Friday,” reports TheWrap.

Staffers are “abstaining from work for the entire day while also staging a rally. It’s the first union work stoppage in the newsroom’s history, according to the union, dating back to when it started printing in 1881.”

This act of suicide is called the “Rally to Save Local Journalism” and will take place Friday at noon.

And earlier today I was stunned to learn that the entire staff of Sports Illustrated is being terminated…

Following through on a warning earlier this month, Authentic Brands Group has revoked Sports Illustrated‘s license to publish due to a missed payment.

As a result of the move, the entire staff of the 70-year-old print and online publication was notified on Friday that their jobs were being eliminated.

“We appreciate the work and efforts of everyone who has contributed to the SI brand and business,” SI operator The Arena Group wrote in a memo to employees that set off outrage on social media.

Once upon a time, Sports Illustrated was a truly great magazine.

Sadly, those days are long gone.

There is so much bad news these days.

At this point the economic outlook is so troubling that even Google is getting ready to conduct yet another round of layoffs…

Google has laid off over a thousand employees across various departments since January 10th. CEO Sundar Pichai’s message is to brace for more cuts.

“We have ambitious goals and will be investing in our big priorities this year,” Pichai told all Google employees on Wednesday in an internal memo that was shared with me. “The reality is that to create the capacity for this investment, we have to make tough choices.”

So far, those “tough choices” have included layoffs and reorganizations in Google’s hardware, ad sales, search, shopping, maps, policy, core engineering, and YouTube teams.

Of course what I have shared with you above is just a small sampling of what is really going on out there.  For many more recent layoff announcements, please see my previous article entitled “Alert! Here Is A List Of 20 Large Companies That Have Just Decided To Conduct Mass Layoffs”.

Before I end this article, I wanted to update all of you on the horrifying stock market crash in China.

Zero Hedge is reporting that Chinese stocks just experienced their “worst weekly loss since March 2023″…

Amid ‘snowball derivative liquidations‘, China’s stock market is falling faster than its population.

The Hang Seng China Enterprises Index crashed 6.5% this week – its worst weekly loss since March 2023 with Wednesday seeing the biggest daily loss since Oct 2022 as the index plummeted to key support levels around the Oct 2022 lows…

The phrase “snowball derivative liquidations” really got my attention, and a lot of you know why.

I have been warning about the derivatives bubble in my books for over a decade.

Derivatives are going to become a very hot topic the closer we get to a full-blown implosion of the global financial system.

We are in far more trouble than most people realize.

2024 is going to be such a tumultuous year, but many of the “experts” will continue to insist that everything is “just fine” for as long as they can.

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

About the Author: Michael Snyder’s highly controversial new book entitled “Chaos” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com.  He has also written seven other books that are available on Amazon.com including “End Times”, “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 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.  You can connect with Michael on social media on YouTube, Facebook and Twitter, and sharing his articles on your own social media accounts 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, we strongly urge you to invite Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior today.

The post How Can Anyone Possibly Claim That The U.S. Economy Is Doing Well With All Of This Going On? appeared first on The Economic Collapse.

Initially, there were rumors that a buyer was being sought for First Republic, but instead the “too big to fail” banks agreed on a plan to deposit a total of 30 billion dollars into the troubled institution…

A group of financial institutions has agreed to deposit $30 billion in First Republic Bank in what’s meant to be a sign of confidence in the banking system, the banks announced Thursday afternoon.

Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Citigroup and JPMorgan Chase will contribute about $5 billion apiece, while Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley will deposit around $2.5 billion, the banks said in a news release. Truist, PNC, U.S. Bancorp, State Street and Bank of New York Mellon will deposit about $1 billion each.

They have all agreed to keep that money in First Republic for at least 120 days, and you can read the joint press release that they issued right here.

Needless to say, executives at First Republic are greatly relieved.  So much money had been pulled out of the bank in recent days, and at one point on Thursday the stock was selling for less than 20 dollars a share…

First Republic’s stock, which closed at $115 per share on March 8, traded below $20 at one point Thursday. The stock was halted repeatedly during the session and rose to $40 per share at one point, up more than 20% on the day.

Did insiders at First Republic know that this was coming?

It is being reported that top executives have sold off a staggering number of shares since the beginning of 2023…

First Republic Bank executives quietly sold nearly $12 million worth of its stock in just the past three months, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Executive Chairman James Herbert II sold the most of any of the other insiders, off-loading a whopping $4.5 million worth of shares since the start of the year.

In all, four of the struggling bank’s top executives sold $11.8 million worth of stock so far this year, at prices averaging just below $130 a share, the Journal found.

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

And those guys got out in time.

So why was First Republic in so much trouble?

Well, just like Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank, they were sitting on enormous unrealized losses because the government bonds that they were holding had lost a ton of value thanks to rapidly rising interest rates.

Ultimately, those unrealized losses made a potential purchase of First Republic quite “unappealing” to the “too big to fail” banks…

In the great financial crisis, several struggling banks were bought for cheap by the larger firms in an effort to help calm the banking system. However, the unrealized losses on First Republic’s bond portfolio due to last year’s rapid rise in interest rates have made an acquisition unappealing, the sources said.

The markdown, which would involve the bank’s held-to-maturity bond portfolio, would amount to about a $25 billion hole on First Republic’s balance sheet, sources told Faber.

But the “too big to fail” banks are collectively sitting on hundreds of billions of dollars in unrealized losses themselves.

And they also have trillions of dollars worth of exposure to the derivatives bubble.

So who is going to bail them out when they start failing?

That is a question that we all need to start asking.

And as trouble increasingly shakes our banking sector, that is going to have enormous implications for our economy as a whole…

A fall in bank deposits will lead to less “high-powered” money, i.e. bank reserves, in the system, which means considerably tighter financial conditions than hitherto experienced. That would be the final straw for an economy that was already highly likely to enter a recession as soon as the summer.

In order for our current economic system to function effectively, we need stable banks, and we need people to have faith in those banks.

For the moment, most ordinary Americans say that they still have faith in the institutions where they are currently doing their banking…

Seven in 10 people surveyed said they still have faith in banks. That compares with two-thirds of customers who said they trust banks in February, the Morning Consult survey found.

But the same can’t be said for those at the top of the economic food chain.

In fact, many of them are now transferring vast sums out of their banks while they still can…

Wealthy investors and family offices are moving more of their money out of bank cash balances and into Treasurys, money markets and other short-term instruments, according to wealth advisors.

High net worth investors typically keep millions of dollars or even tens of millions in cash in their bank accounts to cover bills and unexpected expenses. Their balances are often way above the $250,000 FDIC insured limit. Following the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and potential cracks in the network of regional banks, wealth advisers say many clients are now asking fundamental questions about how and where to keep their cash.

This crisis is just getting started.

Every domino that falls is just going to make things even worse, and ultimately I believe that the entire system is headed for an unprecedented meltdown.

So I would encourage you to do whatever you need to do to protect yourself, because things are only going to get crazier from here.

***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 The Big Banks Have Bailed Out First Republic, But Who Is Going To Bail Out The Big Banks When They Start Failing? appeared first on The Economic Collapse.

The speed at which financial institutions can collapse in a digital economy is absolutely breathtaking.  It is being reported that 42 billion dollars was withdrawn from Silicon Valley Bank in one day alone…

Customers withdrew $42 billion in a single day last week from Silicon Valley Bank, leaving the bank with $1 billion in negative cash balance, the company said in a regulatory filing. The staggering withdrawals unfolded at a speed enabled by digital banking and were likely fueled in part by viral panic spreading on social media platforms and, reportedly, in private chat groups.

Signature Bank was also hit by a withdrawal tsunami, and right now many other regional banks are also seeing huge outflows.

So which banks will be the next to implode?

Well, on Tuesday Moody’s Investors Service suddenly slashed its outlook for the entire U.S. banking sector…

In a harsh blow to an already-reeling sector, Moody’s Investors Service cut its view on the entire banking system to negative from stable.

The firm, part of the big three rating services, said Monday it was making the move in light of key bank failures that prompted regulators to step in Sunday with a dramatic rescue plan for depositors and other institutions impacted by the crisis.

But what was far more troubling was the fact that Moody’s identified six specific banks for potential downgrades…

Moody’s also warned it was reviewing the rates of First Republic Bank, Zions, Western Alliance, Comerica, UMB Financial, and Intrust Financial. It said it had cut the rating on Signature Bank, which was seized by bank regulators over the weekend, to junk.

Needless to say, we will want to keep a very close eye on those six names.

Meanwhile, one of the most important banks in Europe has acknowledged “material weaknesses”…

Credit Suisse has acknowledged ‘material weaknesses’ in its internal controls as the Swiss bank released its annual report on Tuesday, in the latest blow to the scandal-hit bank.

The annual report was delayed following queries from U.S. regulators regarding its books. The bank was supposed to publish its report last week but it postponed the release after a last-minute call from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission over revisions made to cash-flow statements for 2019 and 2020.

Shares of the bank just fell to an all-time low.

Overall, Credit Suisse is now down a staggering 97 percent since 2007.

But we have known that Credit Suisse has been in trouble for years.

Sometimes these things just take time to fully play out.  For example, insiders knew that Silicon Valley Bank was “technically insolvent for months” before it finally collapsed…

In fact, Silicon Valley Bank has been technically insolvent for months: the company had more assets than liabilities, but a huge chunk of those assets could not be liquidated without taking a major loss; everything would be ok, though, because those securities would mature in time, paying back their value in full. The big loser would be Silicon Valley Bank stock holders, who would forego all of the unrealized interest on the more attractive securities the bank could not buy in the meantime; small wonder the stock lost 66% of its value last year:

Many other banks that are “technically insolvent” right now may be able to survive for a while, but their days are numbered.

We are watching a slow-motion train wreck play out right in front of our eyes, and our leaders are not going to be able to stop it.

But they could at least try to make good decisions.

It turns out that there were private buyers for Silicon Valley Bank that had emerged, and having a private buyer purchase the bank would have solved a lot of problems.

Unfortunately, it is being reported that the Biden administration rejected those buyers, and if that is true than this is definitely “another Biden scandal”…

Kevin Hassett, former Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under Trump, told Fox Business that “there were buyers who were willing to step in & buy [SVB, but] the radicals at the @FDICgov basically weren’t going to allow that to happen … the Biden Admin had a whitelist of companies that were allowed to buy the failed bank & companies that weren’t.”

“If this is true,” said Grabien founder Tom Elliott, “then this is another Biden scandal.“

Hopefully the truth will come out about this, because if the Biden administration purposely made this crisis worse for political purposes that should make all of us deeply angry.

We have a major crisis on our hands, and now is not a time to be playing politics.

All over the nation, economic activity is slowing down and large corporations are laying off workers.

In fact, Facebook just announced a second round of layoffs…

Another 10,000 employees of Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, will be laid off, after the tech giant announced further cuts on Tuesday.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg in a message to employees said he “made the difficult decision” to make the cuts, adding that recruiting employees were expected to be impacted by the layoffs this week.

We haven’t seen anything like this since 2008.

Through the end of February, announced job cuts in the United States were running 427 percent higher than they were at the same time last year.

A major economic meltdown is here, and eventually things will get a whole lot worse than they are right now.

So I would encourage you to brace yourselves for the incredibly challenging times that are ahead of us, because they will truly shake our society to the core.

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 The Dominoes Are Starting To Fall Very Rapidly Now – Could These Banks Be Next? appeared first on The Economic Collapse.