Depression

Has The Great Shaking Of The Financial Markets Finally Begun?

February 25, 2021 by Michael

A whole host of prominent voices have been warning that volatility and chaos would be returning to Wall Street, and that is precisely what has happened. But is this just a temporary blip, or has the great shaking of the financial markets finally begun? Many stock market investors are very much hoping for the former, because the pain is already becoming quite severe. The Nasdaq has fallen more than 5 percent this week, and it is headed for its second consecutive weekly loss. But the bond market has actually been making even bigger news. On Thursday, the yield on 10-year U.S. Treasuries actually exceeded 1.6% at one point, and that was the highest level that we have seen in quite a long time. Some pundits are calling what just took place a “flash crash”, but it certainly appears that yields could move even higher in the days ahead.

Throughout the COVID pandemic, stock prices have just gone higher and higher, but everyone knew that the party would end eventually.

Have we now reached that point? The numbers tell us that Thursday was the single worst day for stocks so far in 2021…

The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 559.85 points, or 1.8%, to 31,402.01, slipping from a record high. The S&P 500 lost 2.5% to 3,829.34 in its worst day since Jan. 27. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite slid 3.5% to 13,119.43, posting its biggest sell-off since Oct. 28. Alphabet, Facebook, and Apple all fell more than 3%, while Tesla dropped 8.1%. Microsoft shed 2%.

We are being told that the biggest reason why stocks were falling so much was because of “a full on rout in the bond market”…

It’s “just a full on rout in the bond market. So that filters into everything else,” said Evercore ISI strategist Dennis DeBusschere. “It looks like we just had a flash move in bonds. With a puke move that drove [10-year] yields to 1.6%… We just have to wait for some form of equilibrium in bonds.”

Considering how much our money supply has been rising, there was simply no way that bond yields could stay where they were. It was just a matter of time before inflation fears scared investors, and finally on Thursday the rush for the exits became a stampede…

“It is all about bond yields today,” said Ryan Detrick, chief market strategist for LPL Financial. “There was a flash spike in the 10-year yield and that upset the apple cart, as higher yields are spooking the stock market. Could there be more inflation coming than what most think?”

I can answer Detrick’s question in one word.

Yes.

Eventually, we are going to see inflation rise to levels that most people never dreamed would be possible in the United States.

Meanwhile, the real economy continues to rapidly deteriorate all around us.

One day after Fry’s Electronics announced that it would be going out of business, Best Buy revealed that it will be letting 5,000 workers go…

Best Buy said Thursday that it laid off 5,000 workers this month and is planning to close more stores this year as more consumers buy electronics online.

The news comes at a time when big chains face growing competition from Amazon and other sites that sell items like TVs and laptops. Fry’s Electronics said Wednesday that it would abruptly close all of its stores overnight, ending nearly four-decades in business.

I have always had a soft spot for Best Buy, and so this made me quite sad.

So many iconic businesses are crumbling, and America will never be the same.

Of course one of the primary reasons why so many traditional retailers are failing is because online shopping has surged during this pandemic. But as online shopping becomes increasingly dominant, it has created an epidemic of package thefts…

Forty-three percent of Americans shopping online experienced package theft last year, up from 36 percent in 2019, according to a recent market research study. Of that 43 percent, almost two-thirds reported packages having been stolen more than once. The New York Police Department does not keep data to that level of specificity, I was told, and the most recent figures available for the city estimated that 90,000 packages had disappeared every day in 2019.

90,000 packages a day?

The number really shocked me.

That means that on average at least 90,000 crimes are committed in just one of our major cities every single day.

If things are that bad in New York, what would the number for the entire nation be?

Everywhere you look, the social decay that is eating away at our society like cancer is getting worse and worse. At one time you could trust that most Americans were law abiding citizens that would consistently try to do the right thing, but those days are long gone.

And as economic conditions get even bleaker, that is just going to feed even more crime, civil unrest and social decay.

In the short-term, a very large proportion of the U.S. population is counting on the federal government to bail them out…

Almost one-third, or 29%, of U.S. adults are counting on another round of government relief to get by, and another 24% say they need it but doubt it will happen, a new CNBC + Acorns Invest in You survey conducted by SurveyMonkey found.

People of color are more likely to be relying on the relief, especially Black women. Half of Black Americans and 40% of Hispanics said they were counting on it, while 57% of Black women said the same. Additionally, 24% of Blacks and Hispanics need it but don’t think it will come to fruition.

All the way back when the first round of “stimulus payments” was being proposed, I warned that we were opening up Pandora’s Box.

I warned that the American people would be demanding more payments in the future, and they will reward politicians that are able to deliver those payments at the ballot box.

Of course by borrowing and spending trillions of dollars that we do not have, we are destroying the reserve currency of the world and we are setting the stage for horrific inflation in the future.

In fact, the inflation that is already here is now causing a tremendous amount of instability in the financial markets.

But the “great shaking” is not here quite yet. What we are experiencing now are early warning signs, and hopefully people are paying attention.

***Michael’s new book entitled “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.***

About the Author: My name is Michael Snyder and my brand new book entitled “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America” is now available on Amazon.com. In addition to my new book, I have written four others that are available on Amazon.com including The Beginning Of The End, Get Prepared Now, and Living A Life That Really Matters. (#CommissionsEarned) By purchasing the books you help to support the work that my wife and I are doing, and by giving it to others you help to multiply the impact that we are having on people all over the globe. 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, Twitter and Parler, and any way that you can share these articles with others is a great help. During these very challenging times, people will need hope more than ever before, and it is our goal to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with as many people as we possibly can.

Someone Please Tell Powell, Yellen And Biden That We Are Going To Need A Lot More “Weimar Money”…

February 22, 2021February 22, 2021 by Michael

Volatility has returned to Wall Street, and it appears that our absolutely epic stock market bubble may be in serious trouble. The S&P 500 closed down for the fifth trading session in a row on Monday, and that represents the longest losing streak that we have seen since last February. Investors are starting to get quite nervous, because for most of the past year stock prices have gone in just one direction. Even as the real economy has imploded all around us, there has been tremendous euphoria on Wall Street as stock prices have surged to dizzying heights. If stock prices were allowed to crash, that would definitely not be good for the national mood at all.

So what is the solution?

This stock market bubble was originally created by unprecedented intervention by the Federal Reserve and by extremely wild borrowing and spending by the U.S. government, and in order to keep the bubble going we are going to need a lot more of the same.

So someone needs to tell Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell that it is time to go “full Weimar” so that we can prop up this bubble for as long as humanly possible.

For a while there in 2020, the Fed’s balance sheet was increasing at a nearly vertical pace, but in recent months it has only been going up at an exponential rate…

If the Fed wants to keep stock prices at their current levels, Powell and his minions need to fire up the engines again.

Meanwhile, the federal government has work to do as well. If our politicians in Washington really want stock prices to remain ridiculously high, they need to send more checks to the American people as soon as possible.

The effects of the last round of checks is already starting to wear off, and retail investors need more “stimulus money” to fritter away in their Robinhood accounts.

The good news for Wall Street is that Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has reiterated her call for a large stimulus package, and Joe Biden has said that he is ready to sign one into law.

Of course at this point poor old Joe signs anything that his handlers put on his desk.

We haven’t added another trillion dollars to the national debt in a few months, and investors are quite eager to see our grand total cross the 28 trillion dollar mark. Most of them believe that more stimulus money will mean higher stock prices, but more stimulus money will also cause our money supply to grow even larger.

Since the start of the pandemic, M1 has been growing at a rate that would put the Weimar Republic to shame…

When I look at that chart, I feel like I am going to throw up.

But the only way to “save Wall Street” is to throw more giant mountains of money on to the fire. If we don’t go “full Weimar”, stock prices might crash to reasonable levels, and investors would be absolutely horrified.

And we are already starting to see warning signs. Just look at what happened to Tesla on Monday…

Shares of Tesla closed down 8.55% on Monday, as investors betting on a pandemic comeback rotated out of Big Tech and piled into cyclical stocks.

It’s Tesla’s biggest drop since Sept. 23, 2020, when it closed down 10.34%.

Do you want to be responsible for Tesla investors losing hundreds of billions of dollars in paper profits?

If not, then you need to support more printing, more borrowing and more spending.

Of course I am being facetious in this article.

By going down the road of hyperinflation, we are systematically destroying the value of the reserve currency of the world, we are piling up trillions of dollars of debt that future generations would never possibly be able to repay, and we are setting the stage for the inevitable meltdown of our current financial system.

In other words, we are literally committing national suicide.

Following World War I, they did the exact same thing in Germany.

The Weimar Republic created money like there was no tomorrow, and at first it fueled a tremendous speculative boom. Just a couple days ago, Michael Burry posted about this on his Twitter account…

“Speculation alone, while adding nothing to Germany’s wealth, became one of its largest activities. The fever to join in turning a quick mark infected nearly all classes..Everyone from the elevator operator up was playing the market.”

But that bubble didn’t last, did it?

Germany plunged into a horrific economic depression that shocked the entire world. Eventually, people were running around with wheelbarrows full of cash to pay for things, but nobody wanted the money because it was so worthless.

And of course the collapse of the Weimar Republic set the stage for World War II.

So why do we refuse to learn from history?

Sadly, it isn’t just the U.S. that is going down a hyperinflationary path. Governments all over the globe have been printing, borrowing and spending money at unprecedented levels, and now the ratio of the world’s debt to GDP has reached a staggering 356 percent…

The world’s debt-to-GDP ratio rose to 356% in 2020, a new report from the Institute of International Finance finds, up 35 percentage points from where it stood in 2019, as countries saw their economies shrink and issued an ocean of debt to stay afloat.

We all know how this story ends.

It ends with an absolutely nightmarish global economic collapse.

I have been sounding the alarm for years, and many others have as well.

Unfortunately, those warnings have gone unheeded.

Even though our forefathers handed us the keys to the greatest economic machine the world had ever seen, in our insatiable greed we always had to have more.

We just kept borrowing and spending, and many of us assumed that our self-destructive behavior would never actually catch up with us.

Disaster didn’t strike when our national debt hit 10 trillion dollars, and it didn’t strike when it hit 20 trillion dollars either.

To a lot of Americans, it seemed like we could keep this charade going indefinitely.

But now we are facing a day of reckoning, and the price for going “full Weimar” is going to be very bitter indeed.

***Michael’s new book entitled “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.***

How To Live Your Best Life In America In 2021 (In A Van Down By The River)

February 17, 2021 by Michael

One of the hottest new trends in the U.S. is to get rid of your house and live in a van. Of course many people have had “van life” forced upon them by current economic conditions, but for an increasing number of Americans “van life” has become a choice. Personally, I am old enough to remember when “living in a van” was a running joke in this country. But now we are being told that it is “cool” to live like a hobo. In fact, USA Today insists that life in a van “is particularly well suited” for the COVID pandemic because it allows for much easier social distancing…

But for those who can afford it, #vanlife is particularly well suited for this crisis because it’s socially distanced, can be done on a budget and fosters outdoor activities, which are safer during the outbreak than indoor environments where air doesn’t circulate well.

When you smell like a skunk after not showering for a week, it is true that not too many people will want to get near you, and so I would agree that living in a van will help with social distancing.

Since the start of the pandemic, van sales have risen dramatically, and this has happened even though overall sales for the auto industry are way down…

Mercedes, whose Sprinter van is the vehicle of choice for many #vanlife followers, appears to be the biggest winner. Mercedes-Benz U.S. van sales soared 22.5% in 2020 to 274,916, even as the brand’s overall sales fell 8.9%.

“Everybody’s trying to get their hands on a van,” says Stefanie Doemel, who manages upfit solutions for vans at Mercedes-Benz USA.

Of course most of those that choose to embrace “van life” cannot afford a Mercedes.

If you are fortunate enough to encounter someone living the “van lifestyle”, it is more likely that they will own a junky old Chevy van that has had the interior ripped to shreds over the years.

But the good news for van residents is that they never have to stay in one place and there is always something new to see.

USA Today interviewed one “van life” advocate named Abby Rodriguez who says that when her work for the day is done she can just “go refresh in nature”…

“You feel more relieved from some of the mental stress that others are going through by being trapped in one place,” Abby says. “We have wheels so we can change up our scenery, and after the workday, I can go refresh in nature.”

That is all well and good, but I just hope that she brings a shovel with her when she “refreshes”, because it isn’t polite to leave your droppings right out in the open.

In a companion article, USA Today shared five key tips for those that are considering making the switch to “van life”…

1. Consider buying a used van
2. Budget for upgrades and teach yourself how to do them
3. Stay at public campgrounds or national parks
4. Make sure you’ve got a bathroom solution
5. Plan for fixed and unexpected expenses

Personally, there are two more things that I would add to the list.

Number one, make sure that you are able to secure a good spot down by the river.

Number two, you may want to consider supplementing your income with some public speaking gigs.

As the U.S. economy continues to rapidly deteriorate right in front of our eyes, another one of the hottest new trends is to dig around for discarded food in dumpsters behind large supermarkets.

The trendies like to call it “dumpster diving”, and it has become particularly popular with impoverished Millennials living in core urban areas.

In fact, it has become so popular that some supermarkets are now calling out the police to guard their dumpsters. For example, approximately a dozen police officers were guarding the dumpsters behind a Fred Meyer in Portland on Tuesday…

Roughly a dozen Portland police officers faced off with a small group at a Northeast Portland Fred Meyer on Tuesday after people tried to take food that had been thrown away.

Workers at the Hollywood West Fred Meyer threw away thousands of perishable items because the store, like many others, had lost power in an outage brought on by the region’s winter storm.

We are being told that a riot almost ensued, but of course riots happen at the drop of a hat in Portland these days.

For a while the police were successful in keeping the hungry people away from the dumpsters, but eventually the police got tired and went home.

When the coast was finally clear, hungry Millennials descended upon the dumpsters like a pack of ravenous wolves…

Simonis said police eventually left and those waiting to get food made their way over to the dumpsters. As of 6:30 p.m., about two dozen people were at the dumpsters, taking a few items each.

Simonis noted that all the food was still in good condition, given the cold weather. One person picked up a carton of juice with an expiration date in March.

This is America in 2021. Poverty is growing with each passing day, and people are becoming increasingly desperate.

And if things are this bad already, how bad is the desperation going to become once our economy finally plunges into freefall mode?

On Wednesday, millions of Americans were deeply saddened to hear that Rush Limbaugh had passed away. He will be deeply missed, and nobody will ever be able to fill his shoes.

One of the things that always stood out to me when I listened to Rush was how much he truly loved the United States. He was zealously patriotic, and he truly embodied the ideals that our founders held so dear when they originally established this nation.

So as sad as it was to see him go, I am also glad that he is not going to have to see the nightmarish chapters that are ahead for this country.

Recent political events were already weighing very heavily on him, and to watch the U.S. completely fall to pieces would have absolutely broken his heart.

If we had made much different choices, America could have been on a much different path today.

But instead we continue to steamroll toward oblivion, and many Americans will be doing so inside a clunky old van.

***Michael’s new book entitled “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.***

The Economic Crisis Caused By This Pandemic Has Dramatically Altered How Americans Are Living Their Lives

February 14, 2021 by Michael

This seemingly endless COVID pandemic is causing immense stress for millions of ordinary Americans. In past articles, I have discussed the fact that surveys have shown that Americans are drinking more alcohol and taking more drugs during this pandemic. Even more alarming, we have seen suicide rates spike over the past 12 months as well. Sadly, this isn’t just happening here in the United States. All over the globe, more people are ending their own lives during this pandemic. But of course most people aren’t going to go that far. Instead, most people are just going to quietly struggle along, but in the process many of them are making huge changes to their lifestyles.

For example, this pandemic appears to be greatly affecting both marriage and divorce rates. Here are just a couple of examples…

In Oregon, divorces in the pandemic months of March through December were down about 24% from those months in 2019; marriages were down 16%. In Florida, for the same months, divorces were down 20% and marriages were down 27%.

I can understand why so many Americans are putting off marriage right now. A wedding can be extremely expensive, and many Americans may be hesitant to permanently tie the knot with so much economic uncertainty in our future.

But why are divorce rates down by so much?

That is a very good question. Limited access to courts during the lockdowns was certainly one factor, and many Americans are also concerned about what a divorce would mean for them financially…

One reason for fewer divorces: In many states, access to courts for civil cases was severely curtailed during the pandemic’s early stages. Another reason, according to marriage counselors, is that many couples backed off from a possibly imminent divorce for fear it would only worsen pandemic-fueled financial insecurity.

Meanwhile, this pandemic has also caused more Americans than ever to put off having children.

In fact, birth rates are way down all over the country…

According to a Bloomberg analysis, births decreased by 19 percent in California between December 2019 and December 2020. Data from Florida, Hawaii, Arizona, and Ohio show large declines in birth rates since the pandemic started compared to the previous year’s data, too. A survey conducted by Modern Fertility, a company that sells fertility tests directly to consumers, found that 30 percent of nearly 4,000 people surveyed stated they changed their fertility plans due to COVID-19. One in four of those respondents said they’ve become unsure about having children at all; the most commonly cited reason was uncertainty about the world.

At the beginning of this pandemic, some had suggested that we may see a “baby boom”, but it appears that we are experiencing a “baby bust” instead.

The rising cost of living is causing a tremendous amount of stress for ordinary Americans as well.

Thanks to the crazy spending that Congress has been doing and the reckless money printing that the Federal Reserve has been engaged in, the money supply is skyrocketing and prices are aggressively rising all over the country.

Just look at what has been happening to natural gas prices. The recent cold snap has created a dramatic spike in demand, and this has pushed natural gas prices to unprecedented levels. The following comes from Zero Hedge…

… we hit the proverbial offerless market where any natgas that was available would be purchased at virtually any price, which is why midcontinent prices such as the Oneok OGT nat gas spot exploded from $3.46 one week ago, to $9 on Wednesday, $60.28 on Thursday and an insane $377.13 on Friday, up 32,000% in a few days. This is one of those places where having a limit up circuit breaker could actually be useful, even though there simply is nowhere near enough product to satisfy demand at any price hence the explosive move.

Hubs across the Midcontinent led the surge in prices again Feb. 12 as weather forecasts predicted the coldest temperatures in more than a decade would hit the region over the upcoming holiday weekend. Platts reported that at locations across Kansas, Oklahoma and Eastern Arkansas, hub prices were trading at single-day record highs around $200 to $300/MMBtu. Regional hubs, which typically service only limited local demand, saw fierce competition among shippers, utilities and end-users looking to meet weekend requirements.

This is a reminder of what can happen when things get crazy.

If a short-term cold spell can cause this much chaos, what would happen during a long-term national emergency?

That is something to think about.

Other Americans don’t need to worry about heating their homes, because this pandemic has forced them to live in their vehicles…

Americans are being driven into their vehicles by pandemic-fueled woes. And their ranks are likely to grow as the government safety net frays and evictions and foreclosures rise.

“It’s in times of crisis that the fragility of our systems are laid bare,” said Graham Pruss, a postdoctoral scholar with the Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative at the UC San Francisco Center for Vulnerable Populations.

Particularly on the west coast, government officials have been setting up huge parking lots where those that live in their vehicles can sleep safely at night.

Many of those that are now sleeping in their vehicles were once living comfortable middle class lifestyles, but now this crisis has changed everything. Nicholas Atencio and Heather Surovik are two examples…

For months, Nicholas Atencio and girlfriend Heather Surovik spent nearly every minute of their lives together in a 2000 Cadillac Escalade.

After Atencio, 33, lost his job as a plumber in May, he and Surovik, 36, delivered for Grubhub by day and at night curled up with their puppy on an air bed in the back of their car parked in a lot in Longmont, Colorado, dreaming of being reunited under one roof with Surovik’s teenage son who was living with his grandmother.

Have you ever spent a night in a vehicle?

If you have, then you already know that it isn’t pleasant.

Unfortunately, once eviction moratoriums are finally lifted all over the country we are going to see the largest tsunami of evictions in American history.

So that means that a lot more people are going to end up sleeping in their vehicles.

These are very troubled times, and they are about to get even more troubled…

***Michael’s new book entitled “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.***

America’s Out Of Control Teens Are On A Historic Crime Spree

February 11, 2021 by Michael

Young people are running wild all over the country, and nobody seems to be able to come up with a solution to slow down the violence. Following the tragic death of George Floyd, teens were disproportionally involved in the rioting, looting and arson that erupted in major cities throughout the nation for the remainder of 2020. And sometimes they would just take out their frustrations on random people on the street. But in addition to violence that was spurred by social movements, most of our urban areas also experienced dramatic spikes in their murder rates. In fact, one recently released report found that murder rates rose by an average of 30 percent in 34 of our largest cities…

THE HOMICIDE RATE across 34 American cities increased by 30% on average during 2020, according to experts, as the U.S. reeled from the coronavirus pandemic and widespread protests against police brutality.

The newly released report from the National Commission on COVID-19 and Criminal Justice found that homicides rose in 29 of the 34 cities studied and that the three largest cities in the sample – New York, Los Angeles and Chicago – accounted for 40% of the additional homicide victims in 2020.

That 30 percent average increase was the biggest one year spike ever recorded, and way too much of the time these murders are being committed by Americans under the age of 20.

For example, two Milwaukee teens were just charged with the rape and murder of a young woman named Ee Lee…

Kamare Lewis, 17, and Kevin Spencer, 15 each face one count of first-degree intentional homicide, as party to a crime and one count of first-degree sexual assault (great bodily harm), as party to a crime.

Lee was found Sept. 16, 2020 in Washington Park by “bystanders,” still breathing but unconscious, severely beaten and left for dead. She was undressed below the waist, indicating sexual assault. She suffered severe contusions to the face/head. A hospital examination confirmed the sex assault.

Lee later died from her injuries on September 19th.

But it wasn’t just Lewis and Spencer that were involved in this brutal attack. In fact, we are being told that a total of 11 youths were seen leaving the area…

Video from the Washington Park Library showed 11 people leaving the park — six in a group on bicycles; five in a separate group, some on bikes and others on foot.

Sadly, young girls are also murdering one another.

Here is an example of one young girl stabbing another young girl to death…

Lyric D. Stewart, 14, of Rock Island, was stabbed to death Dec. 30 during a fight in the 1200 block of 11th Street.

Jimena Jinez, 18, also of Rock Island, was arrested in the early morning of Dec. 31, 2020, and charged with first-degree murder in the stabbing death. She has been in custody in Rock Island County Jail since then, and is being held on $1.5 million bond.

Our nation is degenerating right in front of our eyes, and it is only going to get worse.

In Jacksonville, Florida a group of teens recently ganged up to kill three people, including a very young mother…

In the first time since a Washington Heights triple-murder, the family of one of the victims, Sara Urriola, is speaking out. The Jacksonville mother was murdered by four suspected teens at the Calloway Cove apartments.

“We have lost a loving, caring, wife, mother, daughter, niece, cousin, sister, aunt, best-friend and friend today. Sara loved her friends and family very much and the friends that knew her know she was all about the well-being of her family. She loved to dance, dress up, and enjoyed all family events,” the family said in a statement to Action News Jax.

How twisted do you have to be in order to do something like that?

Horrific murders like this happen day after day, but they barely make a blip on the news anymore because they have become so common.

Meanwhile, carjackings are on the rise all over the nation as well.

According to NPR, the number of carjackings in Minneapolis more than tripled last year…

In Minneapolis, for example, there were 405 carjackings last year — more than triple the number in 2019. The suspects arrested were often juveniles between the ages of 11 and 17.

Other cities saw huge increases too, including New Orleans; Kansas City, Mo.; Louisville, Ky.; and Washington, D.C. Last year in Chicago, there were 1,400 carjackings.

Speaking of Chicago, there are certain parts of the city that now resemble a war zone. If you are in the wrong place at the wrong time, there is a good chance that a kid could stick a gun in your face and demand the keys to your vehicle.

What would you do if this happened to you?…

On a sunny January afternoon, Amy Blumenthal drove to her Chicago home after picking up groceries. She turned off a street and into an alley, backed her car into her garage and started unloading the bags.

“All of a sudden, I heard something and looked up and there was a boy with a COVID mask on holding a gun just inches from my face,” Blumenthal says. He demanded she hand over her keys. Another young male, also wearing a mask, told her to hurry up.

Amy Blumenthal was not prepared to face this sort of a scenario.

She eventually pulled herself together enough to give her two attackers the car keys, and she was later totally shocked to find out that they were both under 16 years of age…

In shock, she fumbled as she complied — they let her keep her house keys. Then they jumped in the car and sped off. Chicago police officers noticed their erratic driving, gave chase and the two were quickly arrested after crashing the vehicle into a building.

The robbery had left her shaken, but learning more about who they were left her stunned: They were just 15 and 13 years old.

Thanks to decades of running in the wrong direction, this is what our country has become.

We have become a completely and utterly lawless nation from the very top to the very bottom, and yet we continue to refuse to see the error of our ways.

So the fabric of our society will continue to unravel, and the thin veneer of civilization that we all take for granted on a daily basis will continue to disappear.

***Michael’s new book entitled “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.***

Severe Economic Suffering Is Taking A Very Heavy Toll On Millions Of American Families

February 10, 2021 by Michael

Have you ever been at such a low point in your life that it seems like there is no hope of ever turning things around no matter how hard you try? Right now, there are millions upon millions of Americans that have been emotionally crushed by this economic downturn, and many of them have completely lost all hope. Those around them may be telling them to “hang in there”, but month after month goes by and nothing ever seems to get better.

For a moment, I would like for you to consider a scenario. Imagine that you own a successful small restaurant somewhere in the country. Despite the odds, the restaurant has been successful enough over the years for you to make a living, but now during the COVID pandemic it has been bleeding red ink for months. You keep putting more of your own money into it to keep it alive, but now your own bank account is running dangerously low. The office job that your wife had was always a steady source of income for the family, but she lost that job shortly after the pandemic began. Unless your wife can find a comparable job very quickly, you won’t be able to pay the mortgage in a couple of months. Meanwhile, the drug company that produces the medicine that your son depends upon to survive just raised prices for the third year in a row and your family doctor just told you that your daughter desperately needs surgery. At the same time, your hot water heater needs to be replaced and something is wrong with your vehicle but you are afraid to take it to the mechanic because of how much it might cost.

Does any of that sound familiar?

Yesterday, I discussed the fact that 8 million more Americans have fallen into poverty during this economic crisis. With each passing day, the middle class is getting even smaller, and a recent Pew Research Center survey found that approximately one-fourth of the entire country has “had trouble paying their bills” during this pandemic…

A new Pew Research Center survey finds that, overall, one-in-four adults have had trouble paying their bills since the coronavirus outbreak started, a third have dipped into savings or retirement accounts to make ends meet, and about one-in-six have borrowed money from friends or family or gotten food from a food bank.

When you know that there isn’t going to be enough money to pay the bills this month, that can cause an extraordinary amount of mental stress.

If that has ever happened to you, then you know exactly what I am talking about.

Sadly, financial anxiety is one of the biggest reasons why so many Americans are suffering from mental health issues right now…

If you’re stressed out, anxious or feeling lonely, you are not alone.

Nearly half of American workers have been suffering from mental health issues since the Covid-19 pandemic began, at a significant cost to their well-being and potentially to their employer’s bottom line.

It shocked me to read that close to half the country is willing to admit that they are dealing with mental health issues during this crisis.

If we are struggling this much now, what will happen when things start getting really, really bad?

Many Americans never expected to be facing such severe economic pain in 2021. Just recently, Joe Biden rescinded an executive order that had been signed by President Trump which had significantly lowered the cost of insulin for low income Americans. When a 24-year-old college graduate found out how much he was going to have to pay for insulin from now on, he started freaking out…

“Hi everybody, so I’m just having a little freakout in my car, because I just found out my ******* diabetic supplies, like my insulin and my pump supplies that I need to live are costing $2,000 a month,” said the man, who appears to have Type 1 diabetes.

“I am 24, I only just got out of college before COVID hit and I’m not making any good money. How am I supposed to pay $2,000 for something that I didn’t do anything to get?”

So how would you answer that question?

Would you just tell him to go get a better job?

I don’t know anything about his life situation, but he appears to believe that he is totally out of options.

In fact, he has come to the conclusion that he “can’t afford to live” and that his only remaining option is to give up and die…

“America is ******* bullshit, like I can’t afford to live,” the man shouted, gripped with emotion. “I have to pay for something that I did not at all, at all do anything to get. So I guess I’ll just ******* die.”

According to the CDC, more than 34 million Americans have diabetes.

Are they all supposed to “just die”?

Poverty is growing all around us, and we need to have deep compassion for those that are greatly suffering during this crisis.

Earlier today, I came across a list of things that Reddit users say they have personally done to get through hard times. Here are a few examples from the list…

-“Never fill up the gas tank all the way. You don’t want to be in a situation where you have gas in your car but no groceries.”

-“If you use the oven during winter, when you’re done, leave it cracked so that the heat warms up the rest of the house more.”

-“Going to the doctor isn’t an option until your fever is sustained at 104, a bone is broken, or the tooth rotted and won’t fall out on its own.”

-“Not eating lunch because you either ‘just ate breakfast’ or ‘dinner’s only a few hours away.'”

-“Add water to shampoo to get it to last longer.”

-“If your shoes don’t require duct tape, you don’t need new shoes.”

-“Not being able to wash your clothes until you could do a full, and I mean FULL machine. Getting a stain on a fresh shirt meant scrubbing it with soap over the sink.”

From now on, each one of us needs to start living like every single dollar really matters.

You may think that you are doing okay now, but a job loss, a major car repair or a medical emergency could literally strike at any time.

In this economic environment, most Americans are living paycheck to paycheck, and that means that most of the country is literally just a step or two away from financial disaster.

***Michael’s new book entitled “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.***

8 Million More Living In Poverty, 9 Million Small Businesses In Danger Of Closing, 10 Million Behind On Rent…

February 9, 2021 by Michael

The economic downturn that we are currently experiencing is making the last recession look like a Sunday picnic. Yes, 2008 and 2009 were bad, but they weren’t anything like this. Unprecedented intervention by the Federal Reserve has allowed the rich to get even richer during this crisis, but meanwhile millions upon millions of ordinary Americans are deeply suffering. Unfortunately, what we have gone through so far is just the beginning.

As a child, I was a big fan of Sesame Street, and one of the characters that really stood out to me was Count von Count. I loved the fact that he was always counting things, and that is what I am going to do in this article in order to illustrate how bad economic conditions have now become.

Let’s start with the number 7. According to the Congressional Budget Office, approximately 7 million more Americans would have jobs right now if the COVID pandemic had never happened…

But in fact, what the CBO is projecting is dire: around 7 million people out of work in 2021 whom CBO thought before the pandemic would be working. That’s dire – and a call to immediate action, not calm, not wait-and-see.

Personally, I think that estimate is way too low.

In fact, the Federal Reserve says that 152 million Americans were working before the pandemic started, and only 142 million Americans are working now.

So the CBO estimate appears to be off by about 3 million.

Count von Count would not be happy.

Let’s try another number. According to Bloomberg, the number of Americans living in poverty has risen by 8 million during this crisis…

Support is rising among policy makers to address America’s child-poverty crisis, which is getting worse as the pandemic drags on.

More than 8 million Americans — including many children — fell into poverty during the second half of last year, exacerbating the racial and income inequalities that are holding back the U.S. economy.

In this case, I think that this is a reasonable estimate, but that number will inevitably keep growing in the months ahead.

One of the big reasons why it will continue to rise is because hordes of small businesses will be collapsing, and that brings us to our next number.

According to a study that was recently released by the Fed, 9 million small businesses in the U.S. say that they “won’t survive” in 2021 without more government assistance…

Three in ten small businesses — or 9 million out of the estimated 30 million in the United States — fear they won’t survive in the coming year without additional government assistance, according to a survey recently published by the Federal Reserve.

The Small Business Credit Survey, which was conducted last September and October and released last week, showcased the incredible burden the coronavirus pandemic has placed on America’s small businesses, as 88% of the businesses surveyed reported that sales had not yet returned to pre-pandemic levels.

Can you imagine what our country would look like if almost a third of all small businesses permanently disappeared?

If you watched the Super Bowl, you were bombarded with messaging about the plight of our small businesses. We have never seen anything like this before, and that is because our small businesses have never had to face a crisis of this magnitude.

With each passing day, more small businesses are folding, and nothing that the federal government is going to do will completely stop this trend.

Our next number is 10. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 10 million renters were behind on their rent payments in January, and many more people anticipated not paying rent in February…

An estimated 10 million renters were behind on their rent and at risk of eviction in the middle of January, according to a Census Bureau survey. And an estimated 16 million renters had little to no confidence they could pay rent in February.

Overall, U.S. renters now owe at least 30 billion dollars in back rent.

This has created extreme financial pain for America’s landlords, and when the rent moratoriums are finally lifted we are going to see the largest tsunami of evictions in all of U.S. history by a very wide margin.

Before I wrap up this article, let me leave you with just one more number. So far in 2021, the number of passengers at U.S. airports is down by more than 60 percent compared to 2019…

Over the past seven days, not quite 707,000 passengers per day on average passed TSA checkpoints at US airports, a measure of how many passengers in the US are flying somewhere. This was down by 61.6% from the same period in 2019, the last full year of the Good Times. At the end of January, the drop from 2019 was over 65%.

I honestly do not know how the airline industry is going to survive this without government help.

Speaking of not surviving, Democrats have introduced a bill in Congress that would essentially deal a death blow to the gig economy…

The legislation at the core of their agenda is the PRO Act, which Democrats just re-introduced with sponsors including Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority leader Chuck Schumer. Among many other things, the bill would severely restrict the legal definition of independent contractors in a way that would largely end the gig economy as we know it.

The legislators’ stated intention is to protect workers and bolster their rights under law. Through the reclassification of independent contractors, Democrats hope to force gig economy companies to hire workers as full employees and thus provide them the accompanying salaries and benefits.

If this bill passes, it would absolutely devastate Uber, Lyft and countless other companies that rely on gig workers.

Basically, millions of jobs would go “poof” with one stroke of Joe Biden’s pen.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, more than 50 million Americans are currently employed by the gig economy. It is great to want those workers to have higher pay and more benefits, but if those companies go out of existence there won’t be any jobs at all.

These are very dark times for the U.S. economy, and the outlook for the future is exceedingly bleak.

However, in the short-term economic conditions should stabilize somewhat thanks to the huge stimulus payments that the government will be sending out.

But that bubble of hope will be very brief, and everyone should be able to see that much more pain is on the horizon.

***Michael’s new book entitled “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.***

Americans Have Never Been More Dissatisfied With How The Country Is Functioning Than They Are Right Now

February 7, 2021 by Michael

Are you satisfied with life in America right now? Before you answer that question, consider more than just politics. Taking an overall view that encompasses every aspect of our society, are you generally satisfied with how our society is functioning at this moment or not? Needless to say, we are coming off a very tough year, and 2021 has not started smoothly either. The COVID pandemic continues to drag on, we are mired in the worst economic downturn in more than 70 years, and there is civil unrest in our streets on an almost nightly basis. All of these trials and tribulations have taken a great toll on us emotionally, and so perhaps it shouldn’t be a surprise that a new Gallup survey has found that the American people are less satisfied with how our nation is functioning than they ever have been before…

Americans’ satisfaction with seven broad aspects of the way the country functions is collectively at its lowest in two decades of Gallup measurement. This includes satisfaction with the overall quality of life in the U.S., assessments of government, corporate and religious influence, and perceptions of the economic and moral climates.

The average percentage satisfied with these seven dimensions has plunged to 39% at the start of 2021. That compares with 53% a year ago, the highest average in more than a decade amid strong economic confidence and before the coronavirus pandemic took hold in the U.S.

For the survey, Gallup specifically asked Americans about the following seven areas…

-The overall quality of life
-The opportunity for a person in this nation to get ahead by working hard
-The influence of organized religion
-The size and power of the federal government
-Our system of government and how well it works
-The size and influence of major corporations
-The moral and ethical climate

Satisfaction for every one of those areas was way down.

In fact, for six of those categories the decline from last year was in double digits. Shockingly, the only category that declined by just single digits was “the size and power of the federal government”.

Of course whenever economic conditions are harsh, the overall population is not going to be happy, and we have been through a really tough stretch economically.

According to Gary Halbert of Halbert Wealth Management, last year was the worst year for the U.S. economy in 74 years…

Last Thursday the Commerce Department released its first estimate of 4Q Gross Domestic Product showing the economy grew at an annual rate of 4.0% in the final three months of last year. That followed the 3Q record expansion of 33.4% (annual rate) as the economy rebounded strongly following the COVID-19 lockdowns.

2Q GDP plunged by a record-shattering 33.4% (annual rate) following the 1Q slide of 5% in the first three months of the year. For all of 2020 the economy shrank by 3.5%, the worst annual decline in 74 years (WWII).

Sadly, this year has not started very well either. The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits each week continues to be at nearly four times the pre-pandemic level…

The number of Americans filing for first-time unemployment benefits last week edged down but remained elevated as the coronavirus pandemic continues to trigger a high number of layoffs.

Figures released Thursday by the Labor Department show that 779,000 Americans filed first-time jobless claims in the week ended Jan. 30, lower than the 830,000 forecast by Refinitiv economists.

And the percentage of those without jobs that are considered to be “long-term unemployed” is approaching a record high…

Almost 40% of jobless workers in January were long-term unemployed, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday.

The share has grown steadily since the spring and is approaching the record set in April 2010, in the aftermath of the Great Recession. At that time, nearly 46% of the unemployed were out of work at least six months.

Our system is supposed to provide a helping hand to those that are out of work, but the help doesn’t always get to those that need it.

Even though I write about our economic problems on a regular basis, even I was shocked by a brand new survey that discovered that “just 30% of unemployed individuals are being reached by the unemployment system”…

Congressional Democrats are trying to fast-track a nearly $2 trillion coronavirus relief proposal that would extend the existing supplemental unemployment benefits, but new research suggests that the jobless aid is not reaching millions of out-of-work Americans.

At most, just 30% of unemployed individuals are being reached by the unemployment system, according to a report published this week by Eliza Forsythe, a labor economist at the University of Illinois. That means roughly three out of every four jobless workers aren’t receiving aid — or about 8 million of the 11 million people counted as unemployed in December.

But for millions of deeply hurting Americans, there is good news in the short-term. Congress is about to pass another COVID relief bill, and soon more stimulus payments will be going out to the American people.

Of course borrowing and spending another 1.9 trillion dollars that we do not have will make our long-term debt problems even worse and will push us even farther down a highway to hyperinflation.

In the end, most Americans don’t really care that we are literally committing national suicide. They just know that they are in pain and they want some help as soon as possible.

If economic conditions begin to significantly improve in the weeks ahead, the American people will start to feel better about how the country is doing.

But even if there is some sort of a short-term boost, the long-term outlook is bleaker than ever, and the American people are not going to be able to handle the long-term pain that is coming very well at all.

***Michael’s new book entitled “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.***

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