The Depression Of 2021 – The Economic Collapse

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

Michael — Sun, 14 Feb 2021 23:18:39 +0000

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.***

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.

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

Michael — Fri, 12 Feb 2021 00:35:04 +0000

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.***

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

Michael — Wed, 10 Feb 2021 23:15:18 +0000

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.***

The post Severe Economic Suffering Is Taking A Very Heavy Toll On Millions Of American Families appeared first on The Economic Collapse.

We Are Suffering Through The Most Painful Economic Crisis Since The Great Depression Of The 1930s

Michael — Fri, 22 Jan 2021 03:19:53 +0000

I warned that an economic collapse was coming, and an economic collapse is exactly what we got. 2020 was a “personal financial disaster” for 55 percent of all Americans, approximately 12 million U.S. renters are “at least $5,850 behind in rent and utilities payments”, the Aspen Institute is projecting that up to 40 million people could be facing eviction when the rent and mortgage moratoriums finally end, and more than 70 million new claims for unemployment benefits have been filed since the COVID pandemic began.

Nobody can point to a time since the Great Depression of the 1930s when the U.S. economy was in worse shape than it is right now.

Unfortunately, there are no indications that this nightmare is going to end. Last week, another 900,000 Americans filed new claims for unemployment benefits…

Another 900,000 people filed new unemployment claims last week, President Donald Trump’s last in office, a snapshot of the significant labor market challenges facing President Joe Biden.

An additional 423,000 people in 47 states filed new claims for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, the program created to help gig and self-employed workers.

Prior to 2020, the all-time record for new unemployment claims in a single week was just 695,000, and that old record was set all the way back in 1982.

We shattered that old record early in 2020, but the bigger story is what has happened since we broke it.

At this point, the number of new claims for unemployment benefits has been above 695,000 for 44 weeks in a row.

That is starting to come close to a full year.

If that does not qualify as a “collapse”, then you are probably using a completely different definition of the word than I am using.

This unemployment crisis has hit low wage workers particularly hard. At this point, even Fed officials are being forced to admit that the unemployment rate for low wage workers “is above 20%”.

Many of those low wage workers used to be employed in the restaurant industry, but the restaurant industry continues to be mired in the worst stretch that it has ever encountered…

The number of “seated diners,” a daily measure with which OpenTable tracks walk-ins and diners with reservations, in the week through January 20 in the US was down on average by 57% from the same period last year.

The hospitality industry also typically employs large numbers of low wage workers, and we are being told that last year was the “worst year on record” for that industry…

According to STR, Inc, a hotel industry market data firm, 2020 was absolutely the worst year on record for hotels as industrywide profits fell to zero, as the virus pandemic and resulting government-enforced social distancing measures kept travelers at home.

STR’s latest report said the US hotel occupancy rate was 44% for the year, down from 66% in 2019. This was the lowest occupancy rate on record. In an earlier STR report, we noted weeks ago that the industry had one billion unsold room nights for the first time, surpassing the record of 786 million in 2009.

Countless numbers of small business owners have also been absolutely devastated by this economic downturn.

Each month, thousands of small businesses die a permanent death, and the outlook for the months ahead is not good at all.

The Epoch Times recently interviewed one small business owner in Minnesota who admitted that “the fallout by this time next year will be shocking”…

The ramifications of the forced shutdowns on thousands of small businesses in Minnesota is going to be huge, says Julie Schroeder, who owns two craft stores in the Minneapolis metro area.

“The fallout by this time next year will be shocking,” she told The Epoch Times on Dec. 30, 2020.

Meanwhile, north of the border small businesses are being destroyed at a staggering rate as well…

The Canadian Federation of Independent Business is warning that more than 220,000 businesses across the country are at risk of permanently closing due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The CFIB, a lobby group that represents small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) in Canada, released a new report on Thursday that surveyed 4,129 members about business prospects through the pandemic. The survey found that 181,000 businesses – or one in six – are seriously contemplating permanently closing. That’s up from a similar survey conducted in July, which found that 158,000 businesses were at risk of closing.

In the end, if we can keep the amount of small businesses in the U.S. and Canada that go under to less than 20 percent that should be considered a major victory.

Because I have a feeling that the final number is going to be well above that threshold.

And the Biden administration does not seem too sympathetic to the needs of small businesses at this point. For example, one new law that Biden is likely to sign would absolutely cripple small truckers…

Trucking industry experts expect Joe Biden’s presidency to seriously jeopardize many small American trucking companies, and the prospects of truck drivers who work as independent contractors.

Biden is poised to sign a transportation law passed in the Democratic House and stalled in the then-Republican Senate in 2019. The Moving Forward Act had required commercial motor vehicles to maintain more than $2 million in insurance liability, more than doubling the existing $750,000.

Wouldn’t it be nice if our representatives in Washington were forced to take a basic course in economics before they were allowed to serve?

The blind are leading the blind, and the economic nightmare that we are currently experiencing is eventually going to get a whole lot worse.

But hopefully we can at least have a short period of time where things will plateau a bit before the next major trigger event happens.

So many people out there are really hurting right now, and it is not just financial pain that they are dealing with.

The past several months have been excruciatingly painful for tens of millions of Americans, and the truth is that there are countless people out there that are emotionally shattered at this moment.

If you are one of those people, just keep hanging in there.

It will take some time, but you will get through this and you will recover.

And I will continue to be here pumping out articles as I do my very best to try to help everyone make sense of a world that is going completely mad.

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

The post We Are Suffering Through The Most Painful Economic Crisis Since The Great Depression Of The 1930s appeared first on The Economic Collapse.

“655 people have $4 trillion in wealth. 200 million can’t cover a $1000 expense.”

Michael — Wed, 13 Jan 2021 03:13:35 +0000

The COVID pandemic has caused the gap between the ultra-wealthy and the rest of us to grow larger than it ever has been before. Thanks to the hyperinflationary policies of the Federal Reserve and our politicians in Washington, stock prices have soared to unprecedented heights in recent months. This pushed the wealth of the uber-rich to dizzying heights, but for the rest of the country 2020 was an unmitigated nightmare. As I have discussed previously, one survey found that 2020 was a “personal financial disaster” for 55 percent of all Americans. More than 110,000 restaurants shut down permanently last year, Americans filed more than 70 million claims for unemployment benefits, and tens of millions are potentially facing eviction in 2021. But even though we are mired in the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression of the 1930s, those at the very top of the economic pyramid are laughing all the way to the bank.

Earlier today, I came across a tweet from Sven Heinrich that really struck an emotional chord with me…

655 people have $4 trillion in wealth.

200 million can’t cover a $1000 expense.

I certainly don’t have any problem with people gaining wealth by working extremely hard and making society a better place in the process.

But most of the people at the very top of the economic pyramid only increased their wealth in 2020 because the powers that be decided to open up the firehoses and rain obscene amounts of money on them.

That isn’t right.

As a result of the deeply flawed policies that were implemented because of the COVID pandemic, the gap between “gains in financial assets and the health of the economy” was the largest ever recorded last year…

But as stock market indexes staged a huge rebound from the lows seen in March when the pandemic first hit, the gap between the wealthy and the poor extended an already widening trend to historic proportions.

A report via BofA Global Research published on Friday notes that a measure of the differential between gains in financial assets and the health of the economy hit a record at 6.3X in 2020.

My regular readers are probably sick and tired of hearing me say that the stock market has become completely divorced from economic reality, and now we have a hard number which backs up what I have been saying all along.

As I write this article, the Dow is sitting just above 31,000, and that is utterly absurd.

If the Dow were to fall to 15,000 it would still be overvalued.

Meanwhile, a brand new survey has discovered that only 39 percent of all Americans “would be able to cover an unexpected $1,000 expense”…

Just 39% of Americans would be able to cover an unexpected $1,000 expense, according to a new report from Bankrate.com.

That’s down from 2020, when 41% of people said they could cover a $1,000 cost with their savings.

If only 39 percent of Americans currently have enough money for such an unexpected expense, that means that 61 percent of Americans do not.

According to Google, the current population of the U.S. is 328 million, and 61 percent of 328 million is just over 200 million.

So that is where Sven Heinrich got that figure from.

200 million of us have so little money that we are just barely scraping by from month to month.

And according to one of Walmart’s top executives, many of their customers do not expect “any kind of speedy recovery”…

Walmart Chief Customer Officer Janey Whiteside said Tuesday that many of its shoppers don’t expect the economy to quickly bounce back from the coronavirus pandemic.

Almost half of customers surveyed in November told Walmart that they were worried about the current health of the economy, she said when speaking at the virtual National Retail Federation conference. She said 40% said they didn’t expect “any kind of speedy recovery.”

Unfortunately, those that are pessimistic about how the U.S. economy will perform in 2021 are right on target.

It is going to be a very painful year.

Of course it isn’t just consumers that are concerned about the year ahead. Small business optimism is falling as well…

A popular gauge of small-business confidence in the US sank to a seven-month low in December as stricter lockdown measures and climbing daily case counts cut into economic activity.

The National Federation of Independent Businesses’ index of small-business optimism fell 5.5 points last month to 95.9, according to a Tuesday release. The reading lands below the average index value since 1978 of 98 and marks the lowest level since May. Economists surveyed by Bloomberg expected the gauge to dip slightly to 100.2.

Americans generally tend to be quite optimistic about the future, but looking ahead there just aren’t any reasons to be optimistic about the U.S. economy in 2021.

The COVID pandemic continues to get even worse, new lockdowns have been instituted all over the country, our federal government is in a state of chaos, and there will inevitably be more rioting, looting and civil unrest in the months ahead.

Plus, there will undoubtedly be some additional unexpected surprises that most people are not anticipating.

Before I wrap up this article, there is just one more thing that I wanted to mention. A programmer in San Francisco named Stefan Thomas is the proud owner of 7,002 Bitcoin, but he can’t access his fortune because he forgot the password, and he only has two more tries before he is locked out permanently…

Take Stefan Thomas, a programmer in San Francisco, who told The New York Times that he has 7,002 Bitcoin tucked away — currently worth about $236 million, nearly a quarter billion dollars — but that he has no idea how to access it and can only guess two more passwords before being locked out forever.

Even setting aside the long term prospects for crypto, the key message of these horror stories is that taking digital finances into your own hands is a huge risk if you can’t manage your passwords.

Can you imagine how you would feel if that happened to you?

Sadly, it could be argued that essentially the same thing is happening to the nation as a whole.

America has “forgotten the password” to what once made us so great, and we are running out of chances.

Let us hope that we wake up before it is too late, because time is not on our side at this point.

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

The post “655 people have $4 trillion in wealth. 200 million can’t cover a $1000 expense.” appeared first on The Economic Collapse.

The United States Has Become A Banana Republic

Michael — Mon, 04 Jan 2021 03:50:27 +0000

If we continue destroying the U.S. dollar at our current pace, toilet paper will eventually be more valuable than U.S. dollars. I know that sounds absolutely crazy, but it is true. Once the COVID pandemic hit the United States, those that control the levers of power in this country decided to go “full Weimar” and they never looked back. As a result, the size of our money supply is rising at a rate that would have been unimaginable just a few short years ago. To illustrate what I am talking about, I would like for you to check out this chart that was posted on Twitter by James Turk. As you can see, M1 was up by more than 50 percent in 2020.

This chart is not from a 3rd world banana republic. It’s #USD M1 money supply. Prices are already rising in soybeans, stock indices, crude oil, copper #BTC & many more items. Money printing by the #federalreserve means #inflation in 2021 is baked into the cake. Own physical #gold pic.twitter.com/OhhlnDx8tN

— James Turk (@FGMR) December 30, 2020

We’ve never had a year like that in all of U.S. history. What we are doing is literally insane, but most Americans aren’t even aware of what is happening because the mainstream media isn’t talking about it.

If you are not familiar with “M1”, here is a definition that comes from Investopedia…

M1 is the money supply that is composed of physical currency and coin, demand deposits, travelers’ checks, other checkable deposits, and negotiable order of withdrawal (NOW) accounts. M1 includes the most liquid portions of the money supply because it contains currency and assets that either are or can be quickly converted to cash. However, “near money” and “near, near money,” which fall under M2 and M3, cannot be converted to currency as quickly.

When new money enters the system, every dollar that you are currently holding becomes less valuable.

And if your paycheck does not rise at the same rate that the money supply is rising, that means that your paycheck becomes less valuable as well.

It is helpful to think of our money system as a pie. When more dollars are added to the pie, your share of the pie steadily becomes smaller.

So who does benefit when the pie is expanded?

The ultra-wealthy do, and I will discuss that more below.

But first, I wanted to share another chart with you. The first chart from James Turk showed how M1 has been rising on a percentage basis, and this next chart which comes directly from the Federal Reserve shows how M1 has been rising on an absolute basis…

Just look at that for a moment.

It truly is breathtaking. M1 has literally been rising at almost a vertical rate, and it makes all of the inflation that has come before look almost meaningless.

This is why the stock market keeps hitting record high after record high. Stocks started to crash when COVID first started to spread in the United States, and the Federal Reserve decided to do whatever was necessary to rescue the markets. The “unprecedented” response that we witnessed ended up being “a key driver of billionaire wealth” in 2020…

A key driver of billionaire wealth concentration was the unprecedented monetary policy response to stabilize financial markets in the early days of the pandemic, which spurred the stock market’s gravity-defying rise. When Wall Street was on the verge of panic in March, the Federal Reserve intervened with the promise of low rates and an open-ended liquidity spigot.

In addition, Congress just kept passing “stimulus package” after “stimulus package” in a desperate attempt to “rescue” the economy.

But in the process they borrowed and spent trillions of dollars that we did not have, and that also helped to fuel our transition into hyperinflation.

The good news is that hyperinflation is not showing up at the grocery store or at Walmart yet. Eventually it will happen, but so far consumer prices are just rising at a pace that is quite a bit brisker than usual. Where we are seeing hyperinflation is in stock prices, high end real estate in rural and suburban areas, and in other areas of the economy that the ultra-wealthy have been pouring their money into.

Despite the fact that we just endured one of the worst economic years in U.S. history, 2020 was actually a banner year for billionaires…

Between roughly mid-March and Dec. 22, the United States gained 56 new billionaires, according to the Institute for Policy Studies, bringing the total to 659. The wealth held by that small cadre of Americans has jumped by more than $1 trillion in the months since the pandemic began.

According to a December report issued jointly by Americans for Tax Fairness and the Institute for Policy Studies using data compiled by Forbes, America’s billionaires hold roughly $4 trillion in wealth — a figure roughly double what the 165 million poorest Americans are collectively worth. The 10 richest billionaires have a combined net worth of more than $1 trillion.

Last year the rich got a whole lot richer, and the poor got a whole lot poorer.

As I discussed the other day, 2020 was a “personal financial disaster” for 55 percent of all Americans. The year ended with close to 20 million Americans still receiving government unemployment benefits, and poverty and homelessness have been exploding all around us.

In some cases, people were waiting in lines that were up to 12 hours long just to get a couple of bags of groceries at food banks around the nation. We haven’t seen anything like this since the Great Depression of the 1930s, and many are expecting things to get even worse in 2021.

And with each passing day, more businesses are closing and more Americans are being laid off.

The retail sector has been hit particularly hard. The following comes from Axios…

Malls are going belly up. Familiar names like J.C. Penney, Neiman Marcus and J. Crew have filed for bankruptcy. Increasingly, Americans’ shopping choices will boil down to a handful of internet Everything Stores and survival-of-the-fittest national chains.

And what we have experienced so far is just the tip of the iceberg. One recent report projected that “100,000 brick-and-mortar U.S. retail stores will close by 2025”…

A research report from UBS predicts that 100,000 brick-and-mortar U.S. retail stores will close by 2025, in a trend that started before the pandemic and has accelerated amid coronavirus-related shutdowns.

Our national landscape is already littered with abandoned stores and restaurants, and they are telling us that it is only going to get worse.

What is our country going to look like as this process plays out?

Of course our authorities will just respond to every new crisis by printing even more money.

That is what they did down in Venezuela, and now just about everyone in Venezuela is a millionaire.

But most of those “millionaires” are living in crushing poverty because the money is absolutely worthless.

Sadly, many other countries are doing the same thing that the U.S. is doing, and so this hyperinflationary spiral is not likely to end any time soon.

But let there be no doubt that we are also in a global economic depression. Global GDP is about 8 percent lower than it was before the pandemic started, and the outlook for 2021 does not look promising at all.

If you think that there is a way for this economic story to end well, just go back and look at the M1 chart from the Federal Reserve one more time.

Every other time this has been tried in human history, the story has ended badly.

Our story is going to end badly too, and every American needs to get prepared to survive in a very painful hyperinflationary environment.

***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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Winter Is Coming: 62% Of U.S. Small Business Owners “Fear The Worst Is Still To Come”

Michael — Thu, 17 Dec 2020 04:46:58 +0000

The official start of winter is just a few days away, and many small business owners are concerned that their businesses won’t be able to make it to the start of spring. This is particularly true for those small businesses that rely on face to face interaction with the general public. Restaurants, bars, gyms, coffee shops, hairdressers and independent retailers all over the nation were absolutely devastated by the first round of lockdowns, and now a new round of lockdowns is dealing death blows to countless businesses that had hoped to find a way to heal and get back on their feet in 2021. Politicians such as California Governor Gavin Newsom and New York Governor Andrew Cuomo don’t seem to care that they are literally destroying millions of hopes and dreams. If and when this pandemic finally ends, they will get to go on with their normal lives, but vast numbers of their constituents will not.

According to a brand new U.S. Chamber-MetLife poll of small businesses, just 40 percent of all U.S. small business owners “believe their small businesses can operate indefinitely” the way things are going right now, and a whopping 62 percent of them are convinced that “the worst is still to come”…

The quarterly poll found that the 62% of small-business owners fear that the worst is still to come with COVID-19’s economic impact. Only 40% said they believe their small businesses can operate indefinitely during the current business environment.

Those numbers are consistent with what other recent surveys of small businesses have shown.

There are approximately 30 million small businesses in the United States today, and so that means that if even a third of them were forced to close down permanently we would lose 10 million small businesses.

Can you imagine what that would mean for the economy as a whole?

That same U.S. Chamber-MetLife poll of small businesses also found that 74 percent of all U.S. small business owners “need further government assistance to weather the pandemic”…

A new U.S. Chamber-MetLife poll of small businesses taken from Oct. 30-Nov. 10 and released on Tuesday showed that 74% of the owners said they need further government assistance to weather the pandemic. That percentage rises to 81% for minority-owned businesses.

And when most of those small business owners say that they are in desperate need of help, they are not kidding.

According to the most recent Alignable rent survey, 35 percent of all small businesses in the United States “couldn’t pay their rent this month”…

- Several B2C industries are devastated – 61% of restaurants can’t pay their rent this month. That’s up 19% from 42% in November.
- 35% of U.S. small businesses couldn’t pay their rent this month, up 3% from 32% in November.
- Beauty salons (46%) and travel/hospitality businesses (43%) round out the Top 3 most-affected businesses, but many others are in trouble.
- Looking at demographics, minority-owned businesses are suffering the most, as 49% of them reported that they could not afford their rent in December. That figure is 5% higher than it was in November.
- Women-owned businesses are also struggling (38% of those have not paid their rent, up 3% from 35% last month).

This isn’t what a “recession” looks like.

When more than a third of all small businesses in the entire nation can’t even pay rent, that is called an “economic collapse”.

We can see more evidence of economic collapse when we look at federal tax receipts.

Over the last 9 months, the drop in tax receipts “is the largest on record”…

The pandemic hit the economy in March, triggering widespread job loss and partial and full closing of many small businesses. In November, 9 months into the pandemic, federal gross withheld income tax receipts were off 13% from a year ago. That is roughly in line with the average decline of 15% recorded over the 9-month span, March through November.

Checking the tax data records from the US Treasury the decline in tax receipts over the last 9 months is the largest on record. The only comparable period is the 14% drop in 2009 during the Great Financial Recession.

In other words, we have never seen anything like this before.

And with each passing day, more Americans are falling out of the middle class and into poverty.

In fact, nearly 8 million more Americans have fallen into poverty just since the month of June…

The U.S. poverty rate has surged over the past five months, with 7.8 million Americans falling into poverty, the latest indication of how deeply many are struggling after government aid dwindled.

The poverty rate jumped to 11.7 percent in November, up 2.4 percentage points since June, according to new data released Wednesday by researchers at the University of Chicago and the University of Notre Dame.

Things are getting worse, and it is happening very rapidly.

Everywhere you look there are tragic stories. The other day I was deeply saddened when I heard that a 2-year-old boy had been abandoned at a Goodwill store. When people feel like they are out of options, they can get very desperate, and desperate people do desperate things.

At this point, things are so bad that they are even setting up food banks on U.S. military bases…

Fort Bragg, the largest military base in the United States, has all the trappings of a small American city: shopping centers, a barber shop and social clubs. In a sign of the times, it also has a food bank.

This spring, the Y.M.C.A. on base — which started a food pantry last year to respond to the growing food insecurity among military families — saw a 40 percent increase in requests for groceries. During the same period, grocery requests to AmericaServes, a network that helps military families, jumped to the biggest service request in the organization’s history.

Theoretically, military bases shouldn’t need food banks because everyone in the military is getting a paycheck.

But at this point the cost of living is rising so much faster than paychecks are that even military families are starting to go hungry.

Of course Congress is “feverishly” working on a new stimulus package to help alleviate the suffering of the American people, but some Democrats are extremely upset that they are being forced to choose either enhanced unemployment benefits or $600 stimulus checks for the American people…

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez fiercely criticized the apparent trade-off to include a round of $600 stimulus checks at the expense of funding for enhanced unemployment insurance, calling it “inhumane.”

“The fact that Republicans are forcing Dems to choose between stimulus money OR unemployment benefits, as if we couldn’t easily do both, is barbaric,” the New York congresswoman tweeted. “Do they know that people in red states are hungry too, or do they just not care?”

Considering the fact that we are already 27.5 trillion dollars in debt, the truth is that we really can’t afford any of this.

But if we are in the process of liquidating the nation anyway, we might as well ask for the biggest checks that we can possibly get.

Sadly, nothing that our leaders do now is going to stop our economic collapse from eventually getting a whole lot worse.

For the past several decades we have been on the greatest debt binge in the history of the human race, and now that bubble is in the process of bursting.

Those that are expecting life to “return to normal” at some point are going to be deeply disappointed, because the “big meltdown” has now started, and it appears that 2021 is going to be a really, really painful year.

***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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This Is Going To Be The Worst Winter For The U.S. Economy In Modern Times

Michael — Mon, 07 Dec 2020 03:13:47 +0000

We already knew that this was going to be the worst winter for the U.S. economy since the Great Depression of the 1930s, but now a new round of lockdowns threatens to rip the guts out of hundreds of thousands of small businesses all around the country. As I write this article, 33 million people are under “stay-at-home orders” in California alone. With each passing day, state governments are implementing even more new restrictions, and those new restrictions are going to increasingly choke the life out of economic activity in this nation.

The good news is that most of the corporate giants have enough resources to weather another round of lockdowns, but countless small businesses do not.

In San Francisco, some small businesses that have served the city for generations now find themselves on the edge of extinction…

“I’ve been walking around the city nonstop talking to small businesses owners and every story is sadder than the next,” said Rory Cox, the founder of the newly-formed San Francisco Small Business Alliance. “Everyone is like, ‘I wake up every day and I don’t know how much longer I can do this. I had 60 employees but now all I have is six, or now it’s only me.’ These are family businesses, these are moms and dads, brothers and sisters. I feel firmly we’re the backbone of the city. And they’re destroying us, they’re ripping us apart, they’re tearing out the heart and soul of the city.”

Traditionally, small businesses have been the primary engine of job growth in the United States, but now they are laying off workers in droves once again.

So far this year, more than 70 million Americans have filed new claims for unemployment benefits, and this unprecedented tsunami of job losses was caused by the original round of lockdowns.

Now a new wave of lockdowns is upon us, and there is going to be extreme economic pain all over America.

Sometimes it can be mind numbing to talk about the millions upon millions of Americans that are now in horrifying financial distress, but each one of those individuals has a name…

Tina Morton recently faced a choice: Pay bills — or buy a birthday gift for a child? Derrisa Green is falling further behind on rent. Sylvia Soliz has had her electricity cut off.

Unemployment has forced aching decisions on millions of Americans and their families in the face of a rampaging viral pandemic that has closed shops and restaurants, paralyzed travel and left millions jobless for months.

As I discussed the other day, the Aspen Institute is estimating that up to 40 million Americans could be facing eviction in 2021 because they have gotten behind on rent or mortgage payments.

We have never seen anything like this before in all of American history. We are literally murdering the economy, and most of the politicians that are doing this don’t seem to care. Perhaps their jobs are secure, but there are millions of others that haven’t been able to find a new job after being laid off months ago. In fact, the percentage of “long-term unemployed workers” as a share of all those that are unemployed is now the highest it has been during this entire pandemic…

In November, the number of workers jobless for at least 27 weeks — economists’ barometer for “long-term” unemployment — grew by 385,000 to 3.9 million.

That accounts for 37% of all unemployed workers — up from a third in October and 19% in September.

And of course most of those that are still working are just barely scraping by from month to month.

According to a survey that was just released, nearly tw0-thirds of Americans say that they are living paycheck to paycheck at this point…

In a year still ravaged by the coronavirus pandemic and its economic fallout however, it appears many will be struggling through the most festive part of 2020. A survey finds over 60 percent of Americans say they’re now living paycheck-to-paycheck as the year draws to a close.

The poll of over 2,000 Americans, commissioned by Highland Solutions, wanted to see how spending habits and personal finances in the U.S. are holding up during the pandemic. Their results find 63 percent of respondents have cut back on their spending due to COVID. Six in 10 say they’re doing it to be more cautious, but 49 percent add it’s because of losing income at work.

Now this new wave of lockdowns is going to push millions more struggling Americans into poverty once they lose their jobs.

I feel especially bad for those that have pouring blood, sweat and tears into their small businesses for years only to have them utterly destroyed by politicians like California Governor Gavin Newsom. What one small business owner named Robert Carroll had to say about the new lockdowns in California will stay with me for a very long time…

“We have basically been left with no options and essentially no hope for the future,” wrote Robert Carroll, the owner of the bar Sodini’s in Redwood City. “We understand COVID-19 is serious, and dangerous, however in this scenario it’s not only dangerous to our health, but our financial and mental wellbeing as well. People need to decide for themselves what risks to take, we don’t take risks at Sodini’s, we insist on masks and distancing, all we want is a CHANCE to maintain our business. If you’ve never had a dream taken away and there’s nothing you can do about it, it’s the worst feeling in the world.”

Even in the most wildly optimistic scenario imaginable, it is hard to imagine how we could possibly avoid the most painful winter for the U.S. economy since the Great Depression of the 1930s.

Perhaps that is why corporate insiders are now selling stocks at the fastest pace that we have seen in almost four years.

Corporate insiders absolutely nailed the two short-term peaks in the market that we witnessed earlier this year, and now they seem to think that an even larger move down is coming.

But ultimately what we are heading into is not just another temporary economic setback. Sadly, the truth is that our entire system has started the process of completely melting down.

The COVID pandemic has greatly accelerated matters, but we were going to get to this point one way or another eventually.

Now a day of reckoning is upon us, and this winter is going to be very dark, very cold and very, very bitter.

***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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The Economic Collapse Hits Home: Feeding America Says 1 Out Of 4 U.S. Children Could Suffer From Hunger By The End Of 2020

Michael — Thu, 03 Dec 2020 05:45:38 +0000

There are approximately 74 million children in the United States, and right now millions upon millions of them do not have enough to eat. The economic collapse that has started in 2020 has been brutal for most of the nation, but it has hit children particularly hard. If their parents lose their jobs, there is nothing that they can do except hope that government handouts and the kindness of others will be enough. Unfortunately, way too often they are not enough, and at this point Feeding America is projecting that one out of every four children in America could suffer from hunger by the end of this calendar year…

By the end of this year, more than 50 million people could experience food insecurity, according to Feeding America, the country’s largest hunger-relief organization. That’s one in six Americans and one in four children—nearly a 50 percent increase from 2019. A Northwestern University study in June found that food needs had doubled nationally, and tripled for households with children. The pandemic has laid bare how many people are one paycheck or medical bill away from hunger.

Prior to the pandemic, more than 20 million children were at least getting free or reduced price lunches at school. When lockdowns force the closing of schools, that just makes the hunger crisis even worse…

“There are 22 million children who even before this pandemic relied upon free and reduced lunch,” said Claire Babineaux-Fontenot, the CEO of Feeding America. “When you hear that schools are closed, not only does that mean that there are challenges for children with an education, but it also means lost meals.”

The good news is that the U.S. has a vast network of food banks all over the country, and they have been able to help more people than ever this year.

According to Feeding America, their food banks have “seen a 60 percent increase in demand” compared to last year.

But the bad news is that there simply is not going to be enough food if demand continues to soar in the months ahead. In Alabama, demand at one food pantry has risen 20 percent just since last month…

In central Alabama, demand at the Grace Klein food pantry is up 20% since last month. “It could be the rumours of civil unrest or the rise in Covid cases driving demand, but people are living off this food,” said director Jenny Waltman. The pantry is currently serving about 12,000 people each week, compared with 2,500 a week before the pandemic. The 200 volunteers and staff are exhausted, said Waltman.

At one of Chicago’s most important food pantries, the amount of food given out is up 237 percent compared to last year, and the CEO of that facility says that the new lockdowns are causing demand to start to surge once again…

In Chicago, the Lakeview pantry has provided groceries for 237% more people so far this year compared to 2019, with demand “ramping up again” after leveling off slightly over the summer, according to CEO Kellie O’Connell. “The pandemic has brought to light how normal wasn’t working for so many people, especially black and brown communities.”

And in California, the head of the Tulare County food bank says that “a food cliff is looming” because demand is becoming so intense…

In rural California, s at least one food bank braced for a “food cliff” that could leave it unable to serve clients heading into the new year.

“The food cliff is looming,” said Nicole Celaya, executive director of Tulare County FoodLink. “The food system hasn’t done a very good job of meeting the increased need. As COVID numbers continue to rise, it’s going to get worse.”

All over America people have been sleeping in their vehicles and waiting for hours just to get handouts from their local food banks.

If economic conditions continue to get even worse, many food banks will soon not have any hope of meeting the crushing demand.

Unfortunately, the truth is that economic conditions are getting worse with each passing day. This new wave of lockdowns is causing more businesses to fail and forcing more layoffs, and that is going to mean that a whole lot more people will soon fall into poverty.

I don’t know why the politicians would want to institute more lockdowns after the immense damage that the first wave of lockdowns created. Hundreds of thousands of businesses closed down for an extended period of time, and a significant percentage of them have never reopened…

Other data from the University of California Santa Cruz shows the number of closures could be even higher, with more than 316,000 businesses closed between February and September, which puts the number of daily closures at 1,500 a day.

Meanwhile, the New York Post recently reported that Harvard-run database TrackTheRecovery.org showed 27.8% of small businesses in New York haven’t reopened their doors since January. In New Jersey, 31.2% remain closed. The national average, according to the database, is 29.8%.

Instead of heading for some sort of a “recovery”, now we are heading into a “dark winter” in which countless more businesses will be shuttered.

It is hard to imagine that the lines at the food banks could get even longer, but that appears to be exactly what we could be facing.

In fact, one recent survey found that over half of all U.S. households with children are “not very confident” that they will be able to buy the food that they need in the weeks ahead…

Looking ahead to the next four weeks, 56% of households with children nationwide are “not very confident” they will be able to afford needed food. Nine percent said they are “not at all confident.”

In Pennsylvania, 52% of households are “not very confident”; in New Jersey, the number is 55%.

This is what an economic collapse looks like, and what we have experienced so far is just the beginning.

We are entering a time when there is going to be such widespread economic despair, and we are all going to have to take care of one another if we hope to make it through this storm.

Decades of incredibly foolish decisions are catching up with our nation, and most Americans are completely and utterly unprepared for the very painful times which have now commenced.

***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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America’s Pride In The Economy Is About To Be Greatly Shaken As Tens Of Millions Face Eviction In 2021

Michael — Mon, 30 Nov 2020 03:37:45 +0000

Unless there is emergency intervention, tens of millions of Americans could be facing eviction once the holiday season is over. We kicked the can down the road throughout 2020, but all of the rent that was originally owed to landlords all over the country is still due, and they are very eager to collect. Countless landlords are on the verge of financial ruin because of the rent moratoriums which were put in place, and kicking the can down the road even more would be absolutely disastrous for them. Of course it would also be absolutely disastrous if the moratoriums are not extended, because in some states more than half of all households are behind on their rent or mortgage payments, and most of them have no way to pay.

One way or the other, we are about to hit a breaking point. The Aspen Institute is telling us that a whopping 40 million people “could face eviction over the next several months”…

According to research by the Aspen Institute, nearly 40 million Americans could face eviction over the next several months. The only thing holding back the flood right now is the CDC’s eviction moratorium order and a patchwork of state and local protections for renters.

But these moratoriums are only kicking the can down the road. Chief economist for Moody’s Analytics Mark Zandi told the Washington Post that tenants could owe nearly $70 billion in back rent by year’s end. And for landlords left holding the bag, there’s been little relief, as they’ve been forced to take on the role of government — subsidizing housing for millions even as their own taxes, mortgage payments, and other expenses are due.

That is about 12 percent of the entire country.

If they get evicted, where are they going to go?

Into the streets?

Vox recently interviewed a 48-year-old Texas resident named “Kimberly”, and she says that is exactly where she is headed if she gets evicted…

But after Covid-19 hit, she lost hours at her job as a crew trainer at Raising Cane’s Chicken Fingers and found herself on the brink of financial collapse. She fell behind on her rent and when she tried to work with her landlord to set up a repayment plan, she told Vox that she was served an eviction notice. Now, the only thing keeping her in her home is the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) national eviction moratorium, which prohibits landlords from evicting qualifying tenants for failing to make rent.

If she’s evicted, Kimberly says she has nowhere to go — and will be homeless for the second time in five years.

And there are countless others out there that are just like her.

According to Zero Hedge, “at least half of households in Arkansas, Florida and Nevada are not current on rent and mortgage payments”.

We have never seen anything like this in modern American history, and the new lockdowns that are being instituted across the nation will just make things even worse.

Of course there are many Americans that will be able to move in with family, and this has already been happening in very large numbers. In particular, young people are moving back in with their parents on a massive scale. According to the Pew Research Center, “a majority of young adults in the U.S. live with their parents for the first time since the Great Depression”.

The phrase “since the Great Depression” has been popping up a lot lately, hasn’t it?

That is because this is literally the first economic depression that the U.S. has experienced since that time.

Everywhere we look, we can see the sort of economic devastation that I have been warning was coming for a very long time.

In New Jersey, approximately one-third of all small businesses “have closed down in 2020”…

A third of small businesses in New Jersey have closed down in 2020, according to a report from The Star-Ledger newspaper.

“It’s really bad… And without federal dollars coming into New Jersey, the Main Street stores and other establishments are not gonna make it through the winter.” said Eileen Kean, the state director of the National Federation of Independent Business.

New Jersey’s number is higher than the national average, but not by very much.

Of course Atlantic City has been hit particularly hard because it is so dependent on tourism. At this point, it is being called “the city without a pulse”…

The boardwalk is empty, the beaches are deserted, and the casinos, though partially reopen, are limping into their fifth month of severely curtailed operations after four months of shutdowns. The coronavirus pandemic skewered the economic engine of this beachside town, taking the city’s vibrancy and its residents’ livelihoods out with it.

Sadly, things are inevitably going to get worse in the months ahead thanks to the new lockdowns. The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment has risen significantly for the past two weeks, and more bad weeks are almost certainly ahead.

Needless to say, rising unemployment will mean more Americans being pushed out of their homes and more Americans being pushed into poverty. According to a survey that was released in October, the number of Americans living in poverty has risen by 8 million since May…

The number of Americans living in poverty grew by 8 million since May, according to a Columbia University study, which found an increase in poverty rates after early coronavirus relief ended without more to follow.

Although the federal Cares Act, which gave Americans a one-time stimulus check of $1,200 and unemployed workers an extra $600 each week, was successful at offsetting growing poverty rates in the spring, the effects were short-lived, researchers found in the study published Thursday.

Of course that number is more than a month old, and so the true number of Americans that have been forced into poverty is substantially higher by now.

This is what an economic collapse looks like, and even worse days are ahead of us.

The good news is that those that were warned in advance that an economic collapse was coming had time to make preparations for this sort of a scenario.

But most Americans never wanted to listen to the warnings, and so now they find themselves in the middle of a storm without an umbrella.

Unfortunately, what we have experienced so far is just the leading edge of the storm, and most people still do not realize that.

***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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