Let me give you an example of what I am talking about.  According to the local CBS affiliate, the number of car break-ins has risen “by more than 700 percent in some parts of the city”…

Car break-ins have skyrocketed in San Francisco, increasing by more than 700 percent in some parts of the city. With more people visiting after county and state restrictions were lifted, thieves are taking advantage of tourists by breaking into rental cars.

“Sucky end to our vacation but what can we do,” said Kaitlin Lore, visiting from New Jersey.

The politicians running the city don’t like to admit this, but San Francisco is dealing with an absolutely massive epidemic of street drug abuse.

The addicts that endlessly wander the streets are constantly looking for more drug money, and they have discovered that tourists are easy targets.

So I would not recommend making San Francisco your next vacation destination.

But of course tourists are not the only ones being hit.  In fact, a news crew was just robbed at gunpoint right in the middle of a television interview…

The attack took place outside City Hall on Monday just hours after the police chief blasted his city’s decision to defund its police department by $18.5 million despite a 90 percent increase in murders.

The NBC Bay Area news crew was interviewing Guillermo Cespedes at around 3 pm when two armed men tried to take their camera, the Oakland Police Department said.

It boggles my mind that Oakland politicians would want to slash 18.5 million dollars from the police budget in this environment.

Shootings are up 70 percent in Oakland and murders are up 90 percent, and so the answer is to radically reduce police funding?

Are they nuts?

This is the same sort of thinking that caused California politicians to make all theft below $950 a misdemeanor.  As a result, thieves have learned that they can engage in wild shoplifting sprees as long as they keep the value of goods stolen in each store to under $950…

A steady increase in shoplifting at big chains like Walgreens and CVS prompted a recent hearing before the Board of Supervisors, with some city leaders expressing shock after hearing how bad things are. One executive said thieves would hit several stores in a day, keeping each theft below the $950 threshold, but stealing more than $30,000 of goods overall. City leaders promised to explore the idea of “aggregating” such crimes for prosecution.

“Like other retailers,” said a statement from Safeway, “we’ve seen a dramatic increase in shoplifting incidents and losses from shoplifting since California sentencing laws changed in 2014 to make all theft below $950 a misdemeanor when it was previously a wobbler, either a felony or a misdemeanor based on prosecutorial discretion. Enterprising thieves have figured out there are few consequences to shoplifting if they keep the value of their crimes below $950.”

The shoplifting in San Francisco has gotten so bad that it has started to make headlines all over the globe.

Politicians will give a lot of speeches about the problem, but don’t expect any real solutions any time soon.

Meanwhile, homelessness is another crisis that just continues to grow in the Bay Area.

Even though the region is swimming in more cash than ever before, the number of people camping out in the streets has just kept on climbing.

At this point, many local residents have had enough.  Just check out the results of one recent survey…

The SF Chamber of Commerce released results Thursday from their annual CityBeat Poll, which asks San Francisco voters a range of questions about the state of the city and their perceptions of it.

This year’s poll, like last year’s, found 70% city residents saying that quality of life in the city has declined. 80% of residents polled said that addressing homelessness needs to be a high priority for the city, and 88% said that the problem had gotten worse in the past few years.

Some of the homeless have been herded into a large encampment run by the city, but that has turned out to be a rather expensive proposition.

In fact, it is being reported that each tent in that homeless encampment is costing the city “$60,000 per year”…

Today in “liberals making wonderful capital allocation decisions with your tax dollar news”…

It turns out “solving” the homelessness problem that has (along with sky high taxes) been plaguing San Francisco, driving residents out of the city (and state), is a costly endeavor.

In fact, a homeless encampment run by San Francisco costs the city $60,000 per year, per tent, the NY Post reported this week.

To put that in perspective, putting each one of those homeless individuals into a $5,000 apartment for 12 months would also cost $60,000 a year.

If things are this bad in San Francisco now, how bad will they get when economic conditions really start going downhill?

And if such an incredibly prosperous city cannot solve the problems that I have discussed in this article, how will other less prosperous cities fare as the fabric of our society continues to steadily deteriorate?

Understandably, a large number of San Francisco residents have chosen to leave the city for good in recent months, and of those that remain 40 percent say that they intend to move out of the city permanently within the next few years.

If I was living in San Francisco right now, I would definitely be planning to relocate as well.

But the truth is that the entire country is on the exact same path that San Francisco has gone down.

So what are you going to do when the conditions that we are currently witnessing in San Francisco seem like they are virtually everywhere?

As California goes, so goes the nation.

All around us we can see evidence of America’s decline, and the clock is ticking.

***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.

The post The Bay Area Has Become An Absolute Paradise For Violent Criminals appeared first on The Economic Collapse.

I’ll stop our imaginary tour right there.

Can you guess which major U.S. city I am talking about?

Sadly, the reality of the matter is that there are many U.S. cities that closely fit the description that I just gave you.  For example, Los Angeles was once one of the most beautiful cities on the entire planet, but today it is being described as a “squalid cesspool”…

The Democrat-controlled city of Los Angeles has devolved into a squalid cesspool of rampant crime, uncontrolled homelessness and filthy streets littered with trash, drug paraphernalia and human waste.

That’s the observation of numerous Californians, including award-winning actor James Woods, who lamented on Monday that the picturesque city he once loved “is gone.”

If you walk through the streets of Los Angeles today, you will find that homeless people have erected tents literally all over the city.  Jeremiah Babe has demonstrated this over and over again in his excellent videos, and the footage that he captures during his visits to the core of Los Angeles just seems to keep getting worse over time.

As conditions in Los Angeles deteriorate, it is fueling a dramatic rise in violent crime.  The murder rate in Los Angeles is up 95 percent so far this year, and it is now the number one political issue in the entire city.

Further north, San Francisco officials are dealing with their worst drug epidemic ever.  San Francisco has always had a big problem with drugs, but Dr. Christopher Colwell says that the widespread use of fentanyl has taken things to an entirely different level…

“Our most immediate threat right now is the opioid epidemic and the trauma we are seeing. We are seeing increases I haven’t seen in my career around dependency and overdoses, mostly involving fentanyl. We always had problems with opioids, specifically heroin, but fentanyl has changed the whole landscape of drugs.”

When we think of addicts, we tend to envision street people in our minds, but in San Francisco a lot of people that are overdosing these days are respected professionals…

A physician, two nurses, a professional athlete, a drug dealer and a lawyer who had nodded off in court. Teenagers, specifically a 14- and a 15-year-old. And a 7-year-old who got into a stash in her mother’s purse.

These are some of the types of people Dr. Christopher Colwell, the chief of emergency medicine at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital, has recently seen in the emergency room for medical issues related to fentanyl use and overdoses.

Whenever you have large numbers of drug addicts in a particular city, you are going to have a problem with property crime.  Addicts are always looking for more money to pay for their next hits, and shoplifting has gotten wildly out of control in the city.

What makes things even worse is that shoplifters in San Francisco face very light consequences if they are actually caught, and so at this point they have become extremely brazen…

Alarming video captured the moment a brazen robber filled a garbage bag with products at a San Francisco Walgreens and bicycled out of the store after no one tried to stop him.

The footage posted on Twitter by ABC7 Reporter Lyanne Melendez was filmed on Monday afternoon in a Walgreens at the corner of Gough and Fell streets in the Bay Area – where 17 of the pharmacy’s stores have been forced to close in recent years due to theft.

I watched the video, and the thief actually brushes right up against the security guard without any concern whatsoever.

On the other side of the country, police in the Atlanta area are operating under new rules that restrict them from chasing criminals.  This is infuriating many residents, because now violent criminals can literally get away with just about anything if they just drive away fast enough…

This is the moment cops appear to do nothing amid a drive-by shooting in Atlanta as residents of the wealthy Buckhead area say it’s a ‘warzone’ and demand to secede.

The video, which was played on Tucker Carlson Tonight, shows people lining up near a dark-colored van that is parked on the side of the road when a white car passes by and shots ring out, with one going straight through the dark van, striking one of the passersby and sending people scrambling.

A few seconds later, blue lights could be seen reflecting off the windshield of the black van, symbolizing police cars passing by and not stopping at the scene in the wealthy Buckhead neighborhood.

By the way, the murder rate in Atlanta is up 60 percent so far this year, and officials in Atlanta say that they are desperate for solutions.

Here is a solution.  Perhaps they should actually allow the police to chase down criminals that are shooting at people.

Just a thought.

Up north, New York City hasn’t seen this much degradation since the dirty days of the 1970s.  Crime is wildly out of control, and filth is seemingly everywhere.

Earlier today, I came across a report from the local Fox affiliate that discussed the fact that the number of subway cars that are soiled by “feces, vomit, and blood” is increasing…

As people return to the subway system in New York City, they are finding more trash and filth, according to a new report.

There has been a rise in soiled train cars this year according to Daily News including cases of feces, vomit, and blood.

Do you ever wonder who gets to clean up those messes?

I hope that whoever has to do that job is well paid.

As our major cities degenerate into cesspools of crime, drugs and filth, vast numbers of ordinary citizens are fleeing for greener pastures.  In fact, North American Van Lines has just released a report that confirms that there was a huge wave of migration from “blue states” to “red states” in 2020…

The pandemic saw people leave Democratic blue states in droves and head towards sunnier climes in the red states of the south to escape the strict lockdowns and spiraling crime.

A migration report from moving company North American Moving Services found those living in the states of New York, California, Illinois, New Jersey and Maryland headed for Arizona, Tennessee, South Carolina, North Carolina and Idaho.

Unfortunately, this is just the beginning.  As our cities continue to deteriorate, millions more Americans will be seeking to relocate.

Of course this ongoing mass exodus has already pushed home prices in many desirable rural and suburban areas to absolutely absurd levels.

If you are thinking about relocating, I would recommend doing it as soon as possible, because the collapse of our major cities is only going to get worse.

***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.

The post Many U.S. Cities Are Already Starting To Resemble Post-Apocalyptic Cesspools As America’s Collapse Accelerates appeared first on The Economic Collapse.

#1 I have been warning about exploding debt levels for as long as I have been writing about the economy.  Most people know that the U.S. national debt has now crossed the 28 trillion dollar threshold, but hardly anyone is talking about the explosion of corporate debt that we have been witnessing in recent months.  According to the Federal Reserve, total corporate debt in the United States is now up to a whopping 11.2 trillion dollars…

Before the pandemic, U.S. companies were borrowing heavily at low interest rates. When Covid-19 lockdowns triggered a recession, they didn’t pull back. They borrowed even more and soon paid even less.

After a brief spike, interest rates on corporate debt plummeted to their lowest level on record, bringing a surge in new bonds. Nonfinancial companies issued $1.7 trillion of bonds in the U.S. last year, nearly $600 billion more than the previous high, according to Dealogic. By the end of March, their total debt stood at $11.2 trillion, according to the Federal Reserve, about half the size of the U.S. economy.

#2 Needless to say, this level of corporate debt is not even close to sustainable, and we are starting to see a lot of prominent names go bankrupt.  In fact, one of the largest mall owners in the entire country officially filed for bankruptcy on Sunday…

Washington Prime Group, a major mall owner of more than 100 locations across the United States, filed for bankruptcy, citing pandemic-related shutdowns.

The Columbus, Ohio-based company filed for Chapter 11 late Sunday, saying Covid-19 “created significant challenges” and that the move is “necessary.” Washington Prime secured $100 million in new funding to support its day-to-day operations so it can “continue in the ordinary course without interruption.”

#3 The standard of living in the United States has been going down for a very long time.  Here in 2021, inflation is growing at a much faster rate than wages are, and this is squeezing middle class families like never before.  One of the ways that families are dealing with this is by putting off major purchases, and that is one of the reasons why the average age of the vehicles on our roads has now reached an all-time record high…

The average age of vehicles on U.S. roadways rose to a record 12.1 years last year, as lofty prices and improved quality prompt owners to hold on to their cars longer.

It was the first time the average vehicle age rose above 12 years, according to data released Monday by research firm IHS Markit. While the average vehicle age has risen steadily over the last 15 years, the trend accelerated during the coronavirus pandemic partly because of a drop in new-car sales, IHS said.

#4 America’s growing homelessness crisis has accelerated greatly during the pandemic, and the big cities in California are being hit the hardest.  At this point, it is really difficult to navigate through the streets of San Francisco without stumbling over a tent or stepping in human excrement…

For a city as opulent as San Francisco, it’s long been jarring to see the extreme poverty of those experiencing homelessness on its streets. If you walk around downtown, tents, makeshift cardboard beds and human excrement can be seen littering the sidewalks. Impoverished people lie on the ground as a blur of highly paid professionals whiz by.

#5 The homelessness crisis is also one of the factors that is fueling the dramatic rise in crime rates that we have been seeing all over the nation.  Once upon a time, millions of eager tourists would flock to Venice Beach, but now the phrase “like hell went to hell” is being used to describe conditions at that once pristine tourist trap…

Year-to-date numbers show that robberies have nearly tripled since the same period last year. Homeless-related robberies are up 260 percent; homeless-related assaults with a deadly weapon is up 118 percent; property crimes and area burglaries are up 85 percent; and grand theft auto is up 74 percent.

According to Embrich, felony arrests are up 68 percent, while misdemeanor arrests have grown by 355 percent. But arrests aren’t enough: Suspects are often released back onto the streets within hours.

#6 The police are the ones that are supposed to protect us from crime and restore order when things get out of control, but now they are leaving public service in record numbers.  After being endlessly demonized by leftist activists and the mainstream media, police officers are either retiring or resigning at a staggering rate….

Police retirements have risen by 45 percent in the past year, with officers opting out of forces across the country amid Black Lives Matter demonstrations that fueled anti-cop rhetoric.

The alarming statistic was revealed by the Police Executive Research Forum on Sunday, with the organization also revealing that resignations rose by 18 percent during the same twelve month period.

#7 Have you noticed that many of our cities are becoming disgustingly filthy?  When I was growing up, I often heard the phrase “cleanliness is next to godliness”, but you never hear anyone use it anymore.  These days, filth and grime are everywhere, and that has resulted in widespread infestations.  Many of our cities now have massive problems with rats and bed bugs, but Chicago is the worst of them all…

The Windy City is known for quite a few things: hot dogs, deep dish, baseball. But here’s one thing you probably don’t associate with Chicago: bed bugs. Turns out these tiny hitchhiking pests are quite fond of our city, according to the latest numbers available through Atlanta-based Orkin, a company that specializes in pest control services.

In fact, Chicago ranked no. 1 on the 2021 list, according to Orkin, reclaiming the top spot for the first time since 2017, when it slipped to no. 3, just behind Baltimore and Washington. For the sixth year in a row, Orkin also ranked Chicago the “rattiest” city in America.

#8 I have been writing about the drought in the western half of the country for years, but here in 2021 it is the worst we have ever seen.  As I write this article, an astounding 88 percent of the West is officially in a state of drought…

Lakes at historically low levels, unusually early forest fires, restrictions on water use and now a potentially record heat wave: even before summer’s start the US West is suffering the effects of chronic drought made worse by climate change.

Eighty-eight percent of the West was in a state of drought this week, including the entire states of California, Oregon, Utah and Nevada, according to official data.

#9 When drought gets bad enough, it leads to water shortages, and we will want to watch developments in California very closely.  Water supplies have gotten very tight throughout the state, and officials in Santa Clara County just officially declared “a water shortage emergency”…

Santa Clara County is in extreme drought. We can’t afford to wait to act as our water supplies are being threatened locally and across California. We are in an emergency and Valley Water must do everything we can to protect our groundwater resources and ensure we can provide safe, clean water to Santa Clara County residents and businesses.

To better deal with these threats and the emergency they are causing, today my fellow Board Members and I unanimously declared a water shortage emergency condition in Santa Clara County. This declaration, which is among the strongest actions we can take under law, allows Valley Water to work with our retailers, cities and the county to implement regulations and restrictions on the delivery and consumption of water. We also are urging the County of Santa Clara to proclaim a local emergency and join us in underscoring the seriousness of the threats posed by the extreme drought.

Over the past few years, America has been hit by crisis after crisis, and many are yearning for a return to the good old days.  Unfortunately, that simply is not going to happen.

The United States is never going to be like it once was.  Too many things have changed, and our culture has been radically transformed over the past several decades.

Many of the items that I have shared in this article are simply symptoms of much broader cultural problems.  We are a deeply, deeply sick society, and it is getting worse with each passing day.

***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.

The post 9 Signs That Some Of America’s Long-Term Trends Are Starting To Become Very Serious Short-Term Problems appeared first on The Economic Collapse.

The cracked pieces of our planet that we are all floating around on are becoming increasingly unstable, and we witnessed multiple examples of this last week.  On one day alone, New Zealand was shaken by a magnitude 7.3 earthquake, a magnitude 7.4 earthquake and a magnitude 8.1 earthquake.  On the other side of the globe, Iceland has been hammered by more than 20,000 earthquakes over the past week, and geologists are warning of imminent eruptions at two prominent volcanoes.

Overall, there have been more major earthquakes during the first 65 days of this year than we have ever seen in the first 65 days of any other year in recorded history.

As our planet continues to become more unstable, I would not want to be living anywhere near a major fault line.

Now that the warmongers are back in control in Washington, it also appears that war is on the horizon.  Just a little while ago, I published an article entitled “9 Signs That Chess Pieces Are Being Moved Into Place For A Major War In The Middle East” in which I detailed some of the threats that we are potentially facing.  Once war begins, things will begin to change very rapidly.

Up until now, most of the civil unrest that we have witnessed in this country has been focused on “social justice” issues, and this week there will be more protests.

But soon there will be a shift.  Once war starts, a lot of people will be angry about that, and economic conditions will also feature prominently as the U.S. economy steadily deteriorates.

Speaking of the economy, we are already seeing homeless encampments take over large portions of major cities on the west coast, and we haven’t even gotten to the largest tsunami of evictions in U.S. history yet.

Meanwhile, the emerging global food crisis gets worse with each passing day.  Global food prices have risen for nine months in a row, and the head of the UN World Food Program has warned that we will be facing “famines of biblical proportions” in 2021.

I could go on and on.  The truth is that there is not a single element of “the perfect storm” that has not already begun, but of course global events are going to escalate dramatically in the months and years ahead.

So if you need to move somewhere before everything hits the fan, you need to do it now.

Over the past 12 months, we have seen the greatest exodus out of our major cities that we have ever seen as millions of Americans have scrambled to relocate.

In fact, one new study found that the number of people fleeing San Francisco increased by 649 percent last year compared to the year before.

San Francisco saw an exodus of residents during the coronavirus pandemic, with the net number of exits increasing 649% in 2020, according to a new report published by the California Policy Lab.

Unfortunately, most of those that have left San Francisco are staying in the state of California, and I believe that is a huge mistake.

When things get really bad, you will not want to be in a heavily populated area or in a region of the country that is prone to natural disasters.

Even cities that used to have low crime rates have totally changed.  When I was a kid, I really enjoyed the trips that my family would take to Minneapolis, but now it has become a crime-ridden hellhole that is dominated by roving gangs…

Bill Carlyon moved to the metropolitan area in 1980 to work as an electrical engineer after a brief stint in the army. Back then, he says, Minneapolis was more inclusive than just about anywhere else in the country he ever visited.

“Almost everybody I know won’t come downtown anymore for any reason. We used to come down to theater events and movies all the time. Now there’s gangs that just rove around and beat up old people,” said Carlyon, 69, who prides himself on working with the black community for decades on anti-poverty initiatives.

Believe it or not, Portland was a very nice city at one time too.  But now violent crime is absolutely soaring…

More people died of gunfire last year in Portland — 40 — than the entire tally of homicides the previous year. The number of shootings — 900 — was nearly 2 1/2 times higher than the year before. The spike has continued this year, with more than 150 shootings, including 45 people wounded and 12 killed so far.

It is so sad to watch what is happening to that once great city.  At the end of last week, I wrote about the epidemic of crimes that are being committed in broad daylight around the nation, and I just came across another example that happened just outside a bar in Portland…

Elmer Yarborough got a terrifying call from his sister: She wept as she told him two of his nephews may have been shot in broad daylight as they left a bar in Portland, Oregon.

He drove there as fast as he could. An officer told him one of his nephews was heading to the hospital and the other, Tyrell Penney, hadn’t survived.

Of course there are countless other examples of people being shot in broad daylight in our major cities.  Here is an example from New York…

A man was fatally shot in the head in broad daylight during a dispute outside a Bronx bodega late Friday afternoon, police have said.

Travis Brooker, 35, was killed outside of G&K Deli on Rosedale Ave. near East Tremont Avenue in Parkchester at around 5:15pm.

There is so little fear of the police that the criminals aren’t even waiting for the sun to go down to start shooting people anymore.

And once economic conditions completely implode, the violence is going to get far, far worse.

We should mourn for America, because things could have turned out very differently for our nation if we had made much different choices.

At the same time, if you plan on living through what is ahead you need to get prepared, because the years in front of us are not going to be easy.

***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.

The post If You Need To Move Somewhere Before Everything Hits The Fan, You Need To Do It Now appeared first on The Economic Collapse.

On Wednesday afternoon, the smash-and-grabs turned into armed robbery. KPIX 5 reporter Don Ford was on the story Tuesday and again on Wednesday, and was preparing to interview nearby homeowners when a white luxury sedan with four men inside pulled up.

This happened right in the middle of the day.  A vehicle pulled up to where Ford was conducting an interview, three criminals jumped out, and one of them put a Glock right in his face…

“The car came up here while we were about to do an interview, three guys jumped out,” said Ford. “One had a gun and put in my face and said, ‘We’re taking the camera.’”

The whole encounter with a Glock in his face took less than a minute. “My whole thought at the moment was be calm. Let’s not get this guy excited. He’s got the gun. I don’t. So you take you the camera. It’s yours Buddy.”

Since this is a high profile case, I am sure that the overwhelmed police in San Francisco will “look into” this incident.

But of course there are thousands of other crimes being committed in San Francisco on a daily basis, and the police are never able to solve most of those either.

Brazen daylight crimes are being committed on the other side of the country as well.  For example, two criminal predators recently attacked a 61-year-old man on a Bronx sidewalk, and video footage shows that bystanders just kept “walking by the entire time”…

Police released a shocking video showing a man being attacked and robbed in the middle of the day on a Bronx sidewalk.  People are seen walking by the entire time.

The NYPD says it happened just before 2 p.m. on Monday on White Plains Rd. in the Wakefield section.

Old people are being targeted because they are easy prey.

In this instance, what the two criminals were really after was cold, hard cash…

Two men walked up to the 61-year-old man and demanded cash.

One of them pushed the victim and knocked him to the ground. The other man stomped on his face. Both men searched the victim’s pockets, punched the victim in the head, and stole $817 before taking off.

As crime rates have soared, New York and other big cities have slashed police budgets.

Needless to say, that has not worked out very well.  Sadly, the truth is that the police do not control the streets of many U.S. cities at this point.

In New York, the spike in crime has been unprecedented.  Just check out these numbers…

New York City in 2020 experienced an unprecedented one-year increase in homicides and shootings. Through December 27, 2020, the number of murders was up 41 percent from 2019 and 53 percent from 2018. Shooting victims were up 103 percent from 2019 and 109 percent from 2018; shooting incidents rose 97 percent and 104 percent. In gang-ridden precincts, the spike was even more startling. In Brooklyn’s Brownsville and Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhoods, there were 170 percent more shooting victims in 2020 than in 2019 and 151 percent more shooting incidents. Murder was up 94 percent in these parts of Brooklyn.

Gangs have such free reign in the streets that they have begun “tagging” thousands of buildings in NYC in order to show their domination of certain areas.

On Wednesday, the NYPD announced a “major clean-up operation” in an attempt to do something about all of the graffiti…

New York City has been blighted by graffiti leaving some areas of the Big Apple ‘looking like war zones’ reminiscent of the 1970s and 1980s, leading to a barrage of vandalism complaints.

As part of a major clean-up operation announced on Wednesday, NYPD officers will examine graffiti tags for clues about gang activity in the city after the department said it had received over 6,000 complaints in 2020 alone.

Of course it is a whole lot easier to spray on graffiti than it is to remove it, and unless the NYPD starts arresting people they are going to be fighting a losing battle.

Unfortunately, prosecutors are going soft on crime all over the nation.  For example, dozens of violent terrorists that have been involved in the rioting, looting and arson in downtown Portland have had their cases completely dismissed…

Federal prosecutors have dismissed more than one-third of cases stemming from last summer’s violent protests in downtown Portland, when protesters clashed with federal agents. KGW reviewed federal court records and found 31 of the 90 protest cases have been dismissed by the U.S. Department of Justice, including a mix of misdemeanor and felony charges.

Some of the most serious charges dropped include four defendants charged with assaulting a federal officer, which is a felony. More than half of the dropped charges were “dismissed with prejudice,” which several former federal prosecutors described as extremely rare. “Dismissed with prejudice” means the case can’t be brought back to court.

I was absolutely stunned when I read that.

Hardly anyone ever gets arrested during the endless violence in Portland anyway, and so it is disheartening to learn that many of those that do actually get arrested end up going free.

And of course most of them will soon be back among the protesters.

As our major cities continue to descend into madness, the mass exodus that we are witnessing out of our major cities is likely to accelerate even more.

We have entered a period of time when civil unrest is going to be a permanent part of our lives, and what we have experienced so far is just the beginning.

As economic conditions continue to deteriorate, our young people are going to become even more frustrated and even more desperate.

As I have always said, desperate people do desperate things, and now horrific crimes are regularly happening in broad daylight all over the country.

***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.

The post The Streets Of U.S. Cities Descend Into Chaos As Criminals Brazenly Hunt For New Victims In Broad Daylight appeared first on The Economic Collapse.

With so many Americans looking to move, this has pushed up home prices in desirable suburban and rural areas to insane heights.

In fact, in some parts of the country it is difficult to find a decent home for sale at all.  In Bozeman, Montana one man has actually resorted to walking around with a cardboard sign asking for someone to sell him a house…

“I’m just asking for someone to sell us a home. My sign says please sell me a home,” said Sean Hawksford, a Bozeman resident.

You may have seen Hawksford strolling down Main Street with a cardboard sign, asking for leads on a house for sale.

This is not a homeless man that we are talking about.

Sean Hawksford is a family man that owns a successful business, and he has been approved for a mortgage.

He just can’t find a house to buy.

According to Hawksford, he has made 18 offers over the past 6 months, but none of them have been accepted…

“It’s been about 6 months, we’ve made I think 18 offers now on different properties and haven’t had one accepted yet,” said Hawksford.

“It’s been a little bit tough with them, and all of my first-time homebuyers to be honest with you,” said Jeff Bent, the Hawksfords’ realtor in Bozeman.

I warned that this would happen.

I warned that when things started to get crazy many Americans wouldn’t be able to move because there would be a crushing amount of demand for available housing as hordes of Americans suddenly sought to relocate.  NBC News has used the term “droves” to describe the mass exodus that we witnessed last year…

Americans fled big cities in droves to escape the coronavirus pandemic — and many of them are staying, permanently or indefinitely. But escape means something different depending on whom you ask.

We have never seen anything like this before in U.S. history.  According to the Pew Research Center, about one-fifth of all Americans either moved or know someone who moved in 2020…

A survey conducted by the Pew Research Center while the pandemic was in full swing in June 2020 found that approximately a fifth of Americans moved or know someone who moved as a result of COVID-19. The reasons they gave for people moving were extremely varied — ranging from being called into active military duty to college housing being closed down to, of course, sudden financial constraints.

The corporate media keeps trying to blame COVID for the mass migration, but now the COVID pandemic is fading and Americans are still moving in large numbers.

In fact, one recent survey actually found that “20% more people are planning to move in 2021 than moved in 2020”.

If I was currently living in a major city on the east or west coast, I would be highly motivated to move too.

For example, just check out what is happening in Los Angeles…

Los Angeles, the state’s largest city and arguably the most populous now in the United States, has become a byword for violent crime and especially the stronghold of the enormous, ultraviolent and rapidly growing MS 13 organization, routinely mislabeled as a mere “gang” in media reports. MS 13 has up to 50,000 members worldwide of whom at least 10,000, officially, and probably twice as many according to the private assessments of many police officers are in LA.

Jeremiah Babe recently went into the wealthy areas of downtown Los Angeles, and the footage that he captured was mind blowing.

L.A. has never looked like this, and it is getting worse with each passing day.

Of course many would argue that San Francisco is in even worse shape…

San Francisco – America’s “anything goes” city – is in even worse shape. Its most famous, historically popular and beautiful stylish locations are now swamped with aggressive, unsanitary street people who openly urinate and defecate in the streets. Public services, long superb, are now appalling.

For much more on the tragedy that is playing out in that once beautiful city, please see my previous article entitled “The Reason Why A Lot Of People Are Leaving San Francisco Might Surprise You”.

Of course it isn’t just individuals that are moving.  In recent months we have seen large numbers of businesses choose to relocate.  At one point, Tesla CEO Elon Musk made headlines all over the globe when even he decided that it was time to leave California for good…

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has left California and is now a resident of Texas.

In an interview with The Wall Street Journal on Tuesday, Musk said that the move made sense, amid plans underway for a new Tesla factory in the Austin area.

I certainly can’t blame him.

What rational person would choose California over Texas at this point?

On the east coast, hordes of businesses have left New York as well.  If you can believe it, even the New York Stock Exchange is thinking of leaving…

The head of the world’s largest financial market, Stacey Cunningham, floated the idea of leaving New York in an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal to avoid taxes.

When people think of Florida, they often picture restaurants and shopping, the kind of business you do on vacation. But more and more, people are choosing to move down to the sunshine state because there’s no income tax, and the cost of living is low.

Perhaps they will need to rename it “the Florida Stock Exchange” if they actually pull the trigger on such a move.

Sadly, when things get really bad in this nation, no part of the country will be fully immune.

We will all feel the pain, and the suffering will be off the charts.

But if you do feel motivated to relocate, I would do it as soon as possible, because later this year global events will start accelerating at a very rapid pace.

***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.

The post We Are Witnessing A Last Minute Mass Exodus Before The Final Collapse Of Our Major Cities appeared first on The Economic Collapse.

Los Angeles is a perfect example of what I am talking about.  Once upon a time it attracted wealthy and famous people from all over the globe, but in 2020 it is “a city on the brink“…

Today, Los Angeles is a city on the brink. ‘For Sale’ signs are seemingly dotted on every suburban street as the middle classes, particularly those with families, flee for the safer suburbs, with many choosing to leave LA altogether.

British-born Danny O’Brien runs Watford Moving & Storage. ‘There is a mass exodus from Hollywood,’ he says.

Almost half of the entire homeless population of the entire country now lives in the state of California, and a large proportion of them are addicted to drugs.  Needless to say, this has created a nightmarish environment…

Junkies and the homeless, many of whom are clearly mentally ill, walk the palm-lined streets like zombies – all just three blocks from multi-million-dollar homes overlooking the Pacific.

Stolen bicycles are piled high on pavements littered with broken syringes.

Could you imagine trying to raise a family in such a community?

I certainly couldn’t.

And the worse economic conditions become, the worse the problem gets.  Crime is skyrocketing in L.A., and some residents have been shocked to discover strangers actually “defecating in their front gardens”…

TV bulletins are filled with horror stories from across the city; of women being attacked during their morning jog or residents returning home to find strangers defecating in their front gardens.

Of course Los Angeles is definitely not the only major city dealing with such issues.

On a per capita basis, drug use is even worse in San Francisco, and it is being reported that there is “a mass exodus of people looking to get out of San Francisco real estate”…

According to online real estate company Zillow, there is a mass exodus of people looking to get out of San Francisco real estate – as the housing market is on fire in the Bay Area suburbs, all the way to Lake Tahoe.

According to the company’s “2020 Urban-Suburban Market Report,” home prices in the city have fallen 4.9% year-over-year, while inventory has jumped 96% during the same period, as a flood of new listings hit the market.

In the end, a lot of people may have to take losses on their homes, but it will be worth it simply to get out of California.

And the state legislature has apparently decided that the mass exodus is not happening fast enough, because a bill is being introduced that would impose a new “wealth tax” on the very wealthy…

Fast forward to today when the ultra-liberal state of California is now ready to take this “socialist” idea from concept to the implementation phase, with the SF Chronicle reporting that a group of CA state lawmakers on Thursday proposed a first-in-the-nation state wealth tax that would hit about 30,400 California residents and raise an estimated $7.5 billion for the general fund.

The proposed tax rate would be 0.4% of net worth (most likely ended up far higher), excluding directly held real estate, that exceeds $30 million for single and joint filers and $15 million for married filing separately.

In the old days, a lot of Californians would just head north to Portland or Seattle, but those two cities are not exactly desirable options at this point.

The civil unrest in Seattle never seems to end, and Acting Department of Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf recently said that there had been “twelve official riots” in the first ten days after federal law enforcement officials left Portland.

Sadly, the east coast has experienced plenty of chaos as well, and the mass exodus out of New York City has been particularly dramatic.

In a previous article, I discussed the fact that the the New York Times had reported that 420,000 New Yorkers had moved out of the city between March 1st and May 1st.

But the exodus certainly didn’t end there.

According to the local Fox affiliate, between May and July there was “a 95 percent year over year increase in interest in moving out of Manhattan”…

According to the most recent data from United Van Lines, between May and July, there was a 95 percent year over year increase in interest in moving out of Manhattan. That compares with a 19 percent increase in moving interest in the U.S., overall.

The top destinations for people who moved out of New York City between March and August were Florida and California – which together comprised 28 percent of relocations. Texas and North Carolina made up 16 percent of moves.

And it isn’t just residents that are leaving.

Business after business is shutting down, and that includes some of the most iconic retailers in the city…

J.C. Penney and Neiman Marcus, the anchor tenants at two of the largest malls in Manhattan, recently filed for bankruptcy and announced that they would shutter those locations.

The Subway restaurant chain has already closed dozens of locations in New York City in recent months,

Le Pain Quotidien has permanently closed several of its 27 stores in the city and plans to leave others closed until more people return to the streets, an executive at the chain’s parent, Aurify Brands, told the Times.

Earlier today, I watched a video that someone had taken of all the boarded up shops along 5th Avenue.

If you have not seen that video yet, you can watch it right here.

I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.  At one time 5th Avenue was a playground for the elite of the world, but now it essentially looks “like a demilitarized zone”…

De Blasio’s New York has finally hit an all-time low: the once bustling city is now on the verge of looking like a demilitarized zone. Between the pandemic and the riots in the city, iconic 5th Avenue now looks more like a dystopian nightmare in a recently shot video posted to Twitter.

The video follows a car driving down a deserted 5th Avenue, with almost all of the area’s high end stores boarded up and shut down. There are few people seen on what is usually a busy street.

“Look at everything. Everything’s boarded up. Even the hotel. Boarded up,” the video’s narrator, who is obviously fed up with how the city looks, says.

In about six months, most of the progress that New York City has made since the dark days of the 1970s and 1980s has completely disappeared.

Homelessness and poverty are both exploding, and crime rates are shooting into the stratosphere.

If you can believe it, the number of shootings in July was 177 percent higher than for the same month last year.

If the deplorable conditions in our major cities were just going to be temporary, I don’t believe that we would be seeing such a mass exodus.

But at this point it should be clear to all of us that things aren’t going to turn around any time soon, and many people are convinced that things are just going to continue to get even worse.

Our major cities are degenerating right in front of our eyes, and there doesn’t seem to be any hope of reversing this process now that it has started.

In life, the decisions that we make always have consequences, and the consequences for the decisions that we have made as a nation as a whole will 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.com.***

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.  By purchasing the book 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.  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)  The material contained in this article is for general information purposes only, and readers should consult licensed professionals before making any legal, business, financial or health decisions.  I encourage you to follow me on social media on Facebook and Twitter, and any way that you can share these articles with others is a great help.  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.

The post A Mass Exodus Away From Big Cities On Both Coasts appeared first on The Economic Collapse.

At one time, South Dakota farmers Chris and Amber Dykshorn looked toward the future with great optimism.  But mounting debts and several years of disastrous weather changed all that, and in June their community was shocked when Chris took his own life…

Amber Dykshorn stood at her kitchen window and watched the storm come in.

It was a very dark Saturday night in the middle of the summer in the middle of a year that is on track to be the wettest in more than a century. The wind blew over the farm, the rain came down and she heard the ominous pings on her roof – pea-sized hail, striking the still-fragile stalks of the only corn her husband, Chris Dykshorn, was able to plant before he took his own life in June.

Chris had lost all hope.

The couple was absolutely drowning in debt, and they desperately needed a good year just to keep the farm going.

But then the rain just kept on coming, and now Amber has to deal with three young kids and $300,000 in farm debt all by herself…

Did their crop insurance cover hail damage? She had no idea. That was something Chris would have taken care of, if he were here. Instead she was alone, with nearly $300,000 in farm debt, three kids ages 5 to 13 and a host of grief-fueled questions. Why hadn’t she been able to save him? What would happen to them now?

Sadly, the Dykshorns are not an isolated case.

All across the Midwest, farms are going under at a staggering rate.  According to the vice president of the National Farmers Union, the state of Wisconsin is “losing two farms a day” at this point…

“You look at the weather, you look at the crops you can’t get off the field, you look at the bills you can’t pay,” Patty Edelburg, vice president of the National Farmers Union, told Yahoo Finance. “Bankruptcies are up. Wisconsin is attributed as the No. 1 bankruptcy in the nation right now, when it comes to dairy farmers. That number is up, I think, 24% from last year already. We’re losing two farms a day.”

If you can believe it, the state of Wisconsin “lost almost 1,200 dairy farms” between 2016 and 2018.

Overall, the number of dairy farms in the state has fallen by 49 percent during the last 15 years.

Just think about that.

Half of all the dairy farms in our most important dairy producing state are completely gone.

And instead of tapering off, this “farm apocalypse” just continues to pick up speed.  Sadly, the bankers are contributing to this crisis in a major way by denying loans to many of these troubled farmers…

“Farming is such a stressful occupation by itself,” Edelburg said. “When you start adding financial stress on top of it, it’s just going to add more stress. Farmers can’t pay their bills, they have no extra money, they have people honing down their neck looking to pay bills. They’re going to banks and they can’t get loans. They’re literally being denied loans.”

When you are already drowning in debt and your crops are failing and the banks won’t give you any more money, it can seem like there is no way out.

This is the position that Chris Dykshorn found himself in, and we can get an idea of what his emotional state was like just before he committed suicide from the final texts that he sent to his wife…

“I’m struggling so bad today. I don’t know what to do anymore,” he texted on May 31. “I seriously don’t know how we r gonna make it.”

On June 1: “I just want to sit in the house and cry.”

And then: “What am I supposed to do. I am failing and feel like I’m gonna lose everything I’ve worked for the past how many years.”

As I have stressed over and over, suicide is never the answer.  But when someone loses all hope that there will ever be an opportunity to turn things around, it can be very difficult to keep going.

Meanwhile, money is flowing like wine on Wall Street thanks to the Federal Reserve.  The unelected Fed has been pumping billions upon billions of dollars into the financial markets, and this has resulted in a higher concentration of wealth among the top one percent than ever before.  The following comes from Bloomberg…

The top 1% of American households have enjoyed huge returns in the stock market in the past decade, to the point that they now control more than half of the equity in U.S. public and private companies, according to data from the Federal Reserve. Those fat portfolios have America’s elite gobbling up an ever-bigger piece of the pie.

The very richest had assets of about $35.4 trillion in the second quarter, or just shy of the $36.9 trillion held by the tens of millions of people who make up the 50th percentile to the 90th percentile of Americans — much of the middle and upper-middle classes.

In essence, Wall Street is being showered by “welfare money” from the Federal Reserve, and nobody is holding the Fed accountable.

At the same time, tens of millions of American families are working low paying jobs and are just barely getting by from month to month.  The following comes from Zero Hedge…

For instance, a new report sheds light on 53 million Americans, or about 44% of all US workers, aged 18 to 64, are considered low-wage and low-skilled.

Many of these folks are stuck in the gig economy, making approximately $10.22 per hour, and they bring home less than $20,000 per year, according to a Brookings Institution report.

Today, half of all American workers make less than $33,000 a year.  As the cost of living continues to rise much faster than wages do, hard working Americans are increasingly turning to debt in order to make ends meet, and during the next recession many families will not be able to service those debts.

All over the nation, we are watching a tragedy play out in slow motion.

America’s heartland is being gutted, and the “next recession” hasn’t even officially started yet.  But soon enough it will, and the deep depression that we are already witnessing in many parts of the middle of the country will get a lot worse.

About the Author: I am a voice crying out for change in a society that generally seems content to stay asleep. My name is Michael Snyder and I am the publisher of 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 have written four books 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 those books you help to support my work. I always freely and happily allow others to republish my articles on their own websites, but due to government regulations I need those that republish my articles to include this “About the Author” section with each article. In order to comply with those government regulations, I need to tell you that the controversial opinions in this article are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of the websites where my work is republished. This article may contain opinions on political matters, but it is not intended to promote the candidacy of any particular political candidate. 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. Those responding to this article by making comments are solely responsible for their viewpoints, and those viewpoints do not necessarily represent the viewpoints of Michael Snyder or the operators of the websites where my work is republished. I encourage you to follow me on social media on Facebook and Twitter, and any way that you can share these articles with others is a great help.

The post For Millions Of Americans In The Middle Of The Country, It Feels Like An Economic Depression Right Now appeared first on The Economic Collapse.

Trump sat for an interview with Tucker Carlson during his trip to South Korea over the weekend. The Fox News host observed that cities in Japan, host of the Group of 20 summit, had “no graffiti” and “no one going to the bathroom on the streets,” and said New York City and Los Angeles had a “major problem with filth.”

In response, President Trump blamed the liberals that are running those big cities for the current conditions, and he described what some homeless people are going through as “living in hell”…

The president described cities in a dire state, claiming police officers are “getting sick just by walking the beat,” and some people are “living in hell.”

Some people may be tempted to think that Trump was exaggerating, but the truth is that conditions on the streets of some of our major cities just continue to deteriorate at a very rapid pace.

For example, just consider the following excerpt from a Los Angeles Times article that was published about a month ago…

I’ve seen so many rats the last two weeks in downtown Los Angeles, I have to suspect they’re plotting a takeover of City Hall, which vermin infiltrated last year.

The city of Los Angeles has become a giant trash receptacle. It used to be that illegal dumpers were a little more discreet, tossing their refuse in fields and gullies and remote outposts.

Now city streets are treated like dumpsters, or even toilets — on Thursday, the 1600 block of Santee Street was cordoned off after someone dumped a fat load of poop in the street. I’m not sure when any of this became the norm, but it must have something to do with the knowledge that you can get away with it.

Of course similar things could be said about Seattle, Portland, Denver or just about any major city out west.

When authorities cleaned up the homeless camps that had popped up on a two mile stretch along a bike trail in Orange County last year, this is what they hauled away…

• 404 tons of debris
• 13,950 needles (approximate number based on what disposal containers hold)
• 5,279 pounds of hazardous waste (human waste, propane, pesticides and other materials)

It literally took months to clean everything up, and that was just one very small two mile stretch of southern California.

But when it comes to human feces, nobody can even come close to San Francisco.

According to Forbes, there have been more than 118,000 officially reported cases of human feces on the streets since 2011…

Since 2011, there have been at least 118,352 reported instances of human fecal matter on city streets.

New mayor, London Breed, won election by promising to clean things up. However, conditions are the same or worse. Last year, the number of reports spiked to an all-time high at 28,084. In first quarter 2019, the pace continued with 6,676 instances of human waste in the public way.

pic.twitter.com/tIDXcAR3ps

— John Paczkowski (@JohnPaczkowski) April 16, 2019

This is supposed to be one of the wealthiest cities on the entire planet, and yet it has become a giant human manure pile.

Of course much of this is being fueled by drugs.  Addicts are often so zombiefied that they don’t care who or what is around when it comes time to use the potty.  In the U.S. today, more people die from drug overdoses than from traffic accidents, and even the New York Times admits that we are in the midst of the “worst drug crisis in American history”.

But for many others, being homeless has nothing to do with drugs at all.  The middle class is being eviscerated all around us, and poverty is growing with each passing day.  And it turns out that several of the counties with the most unaffordable housing in America just happen to be in California…

ATTOM Data Solutions published its 2Q19 US Home Affordability Report, which reveals median home prices last quarter weren’t affordable for the average American in 74% (353 of 480 counties) of the counties analyzed.

The most unaffordable counties, the reported noted, were in Los Angeles County, California; Cook County (Chicago), Illinois; Maricopa County (Phoenix), Arizona; San Diego County, California; and Orange County, California.

There is never going to be any sort of a permanent solution to the homelessness crisis in California until there is a lot more affordable housing, and right now liberal policies are standing in the way of that happening.

Unfortunately, the entire country is likely to see a substantial rise in homelessness as this new economic downturn continues to escalate.  At this point things have already gotten so tight that a third of all Americans have cut spending within the last 12 months…

A third of Americans say they’ve cut spending in the last year, and that percentage is about the same no matter the demographic. Reasons for spending less ranged from a loss of household income and new debt to fear of recession, job loss or large medical bills from an unexpected illness or injury.

Considering the fact that 59 percent of all Americans are currently living paycheck to paycheck, the truth is that most of us are just a couple of bad breaks away from financial disaster.

So instead of looking down on homeless people, the rest of us should be working harder than ever so that we can survive the very rough times that are coming.

Nobody plans to fall into poverty, and nobody actually wants to be homeless.

But tonight more than 550,000 Americans do not have a home, and that number is only going to keep rising.

About the author: Michael Snyder is a nationally-syndicated writer, media personality and political activist. He is the author of four books including Get Prepared Now, The Beginning Of The End and Living A Life That Really Matters. His articles are originally published on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News. From there, his articles are republished on dozens of other prominent websites. If you would like to republish his articles, please feel free to do so. The more people that see this information the better, and we need to wake more people up while there is still time.

The post When President Trump Was Asked About The Epidemic Of Human Feces On Our Streets, Here Is How He Responded… appeared first on The Economic Collapse.

In San Francisco, the homeless population has grown by 17 percent since 2017, and when a UN official recently walked the streets she was absolutely horrified by what she witnessed…

When Leilani Farha paid a visit to San Francisco in January, she knew the grim reputation of the city’s homeless encampments. In her four years as the United Nations Special Rapporteur for Adequate Housing, Farha has visited the slums of Mumbai, Delhi, Mexico City, Jarkarta, and Manila. The crisis in San Francisco, she said, is comparable to these conditions.

I have never been to Mumbai, Delhi, Mexico City, Jarkarta or Manila, and so I will just have to take her word for what the conditions are like there.

But how can this be happening in one of the wealthiest cities in the entire country?

Sadly, to a large degree San Francisco has done this to itself.  Every single day drugs are openly bought and sold at “an outdoor market of sorts” right in the heart of the city, and authorities know exactly where it is happening…

To drill down on the epicenter of the crisis, a recent New York Times inquiry set out to find the dirtiest block in San Francisco. After asking statisticians to compile a list of streets with the most neighborhood complaints regarding sidewalk cleanliness, the Times landed on a winner: Hyde Street’s 300 block, which received more than 2,200 complaints over the last decade.

A visit to the block yields a harrowing sight of drug addicts and mentally ill residents, many of whom are part of the city’s overwhelmingly large homeless population. During the day, drug users host an outdoor market of sorts, selling heroin, crack cocaine, and amphetamines along the sidewalks.

They could shut down the drug dealing if they really wanted to do so.

And anywhere the illegal drug trade is thriving, you are also going to have a lot of property crime.  At this point, no city in America has a higher rate of property crime than San Francisco does…

San Francisco is the nation’s leader in property crime. Burglary, larceny, shoplifting, and vandalism are included under this ugly umbrella. The rate of car break-ins is particularly striking: in 2017 over 30,000 reports were filed, and the current average is 51 per day. Other low-level offenses, including drug dealing, street harassment, encampments, indecent exposure, public intoxication, simple assault, and disorderly conduct are also rampant.

Meanwhile, things are not much better in Los Angeles.  In fact, many would argue that L.A. is in even worse condition.

The homeless population in the city has risen 16 percent since last year, and it is taking over neighborhood after neighborhood.  Los Angeles was once one of the most beautiful cities in the entire world, but now it is rapidly being transformed into a hellhole…

If someone predicted half a century ago that a Los Angeles police station or indeed L.A. City Hall would be in danger of periodic, flea-borne infectious typhus outbreaks, he would have been considered unhinged. After all, the city that gave us the modern freeway system is not supposed to resemble Justinian’s sixth-century Constantinople. Yet typhus, along with outbreaks of infectious hepatitis A, are in the news on California streets. The sidewalks of the state’s major cities are homes to piles of used needles, feces, and refuse. Hygienists warn that permissive municipal governments are setting the stage — through spiking populations of history’s banes of fleas, lice, and rats — for possible dark-age outbreaks of plague or worse.

Skid Row is the epicenter of the homeless problem in L.A., and I highly recommend that you do not go down there to check it out for yourself.

It is hard to believe that people are actually living this way in America in 2019.  This is what one reporter witnessed during his visit to the neighborhood…

If you want to know how bad the homelessness crisis has gotten in California, just turn to 4 squares miles east of Main Street in downtown Los Angeles. The area, known as Skid Row, has long been inhabited by the city’s poorest residents. These days it resembles something akin to a nightmare.

Residents sleep in tents surrounded by discarded needles and feces, their belongings tucked into trash bags and shopping carts. Some shade themselves with tarps or use nearby light poles to connect to power. Others have contracted typhus from rats scurrying across the sidewalk. One resident was even found bathing in the water from a broken fire hydrant.

This is where the rest of the country is headed if we are not very careful.  Bad policies have bad consequences, and our leaders have been taking us in the wrong direction for a very long time.

And instead of getting to the root of our problems, most of our politicians seem to think that engaging in bizarre social experiments will somehow solve our problems.

For example, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti is convinced that we can solve the homeless problem by building tiny housing units in the backyards of private homeowners…

As part of this mission, the city is pursuing a pilot program, made possible by a $1 million Bloomberg Philanthropies grant, that would help homeowners install backyard units on their properties. In exchange for a $10,000 to $30,000 stipend, homeowners would be able to charge a small rent to homeless tenants, who would pay their share through vouchers or their own income. The city also plans to institute a matchmaking process that pairs owners and tenants.

“Our homeless crisis demands that we get creative,” the mayor said. If the backyard pilot works, he added, the idea could be adopted anywhere.

So if you live in Los Angeles, soon you will be able to bring the needles and piles of human feces from Skid Row into your own backyard.

Meanwhile, homeless people keep dropping dead night after night in Los Angeles.  Just check out these staggering numbers…

A record number of homeless people — 918 last year alone — are dying across Los Angeles County, on bus benches, hillsides, railroad tracks and sidewalks.

Deaths have jumped 76% in the past five years, outpacing the growth of the homeless population, according to a Kaiser Health News analysis of the coroner’s data.

Year after year, this homelessness crisis is only getting worse.

The fabric of our society is literally coming apart right in front of our eyes, and we can all see what is happening, and yet our leaders seem absolutely powerless to fix it.

If we continue on this trajectory, what is our nation going to look like in a few years?

Just something to think about…

About the author: Michael Snyder is a nationally-syndicated writer, media personality and political activist. He is the author of four books including Get Prepared Now, The Beginning Of The End and Living A Life That Really Matters. His articles are originally published on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News. From there, his articles are republished on dozens of other prominent websites. If you would like to republish his articles, please feel free to do so. The more people that see this information the better, and we need to wake more people up while there is still time.

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