The Economy

The Entire System Is Crumbling! Major Red Flags Are Popping Up For Banks, Small Businesses And Retailers

June 10, 2024June 10, 2024 by Michael

If the economy is fine, why are so many signs of trouble erupting all around us? Those that keep insisting that the U.S. economy is heading in the right direction conveniently ignore the very troubling facts and figures that I regularly share with my readers. When you take an honest look at the cold, hard numbers that the economy keeps producing, there is only one logical conclusion. Our entire system is crumbling, and it appears that conditions will soon get significantly worse.

Just look at what is happening to our banks.

The FDIC’s most recent report tells us that there are 63 “problem banks” in the United States, and collectively our banks now have 517 billion dollars in unrealized losses…

According to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation’s first quarter report, the US banking system is sitting on a collective $517 billion in unrealized losses and has 63 “problem banks.”

Those losses have been sparked primarily by a surge in interest rates over the past two years, which have driven down the price of fixed-income securities held by banks.

Unrealized losses held by banks increased by $39 billion in the first quarter relative to the fourth quarter of 2023.

“Higher unrealized losses on residential mortgage-backed securities, resulting from higher mortgage rates in the first quarter, drove the overall increase,” the FDIC said.

I would love to know what banks are on that list.

Wouldn’t you?

But the FDIC will not tell us.

As Daisy Luther has accurately noted, the FDIC won’t release that information because they are afraid of bank runs…

We don’t get to know which banks are in trouble.

It could be my bank. It could be yours. Or maybe it’s not.

Are they big banks? Small ones?

The list is confidential to inhibit the likelihood of bank runs finishing off these institutions.

So we just don’t know.

If Americans had the truth, there would be bank runs all over the country tomorrow morning.

That is a rather comforting thought.

And the condition of our banks just continues to deteriorate because mountains of commercial real estate loans are going bad.

At this point, it has become clear that we have never faced a commercial real estate crisis of this magnitude in our entire history…

The CRE sector faces the triple whammy of falling prices, falling demand, and rising interest rates. The post-pandemic rise of telecommuting and work-at-home programs crushed demand for office space. Vacancy rates in commercial buildings have soared.

This has put significant stress on commercial real estate companies. The biggest bankruptcy in 2023 was the failure of the Pennsylvania Real Estate Investment Trust. The company had loaded up with more than $1 billion in liabilities.

The collapse of the commercial real estate market could easily spill over into the financial sector. That’s because a lot of loans are coming due.

According to the Mortgage Bankers Association, around $1.2 trillion of commercial real estate debt in the United States will mature over the next two years.

A lot of financial institutions will fail during the months and years that are ahead of us.

Just hope that your money is not in one of them.

Meanwhile, one recent survey discovered that approximately two-thirds of all small businesses in the United States are teetering on the brink of disaster…

A new survey reveals that over two-thirds of small business owners are terrified of the state of the economy under Joe Biden’s watch, fearing that current conditions and ongoing downward trends will lead to them having to close their businesses.

As reported by the Daily Caller, the poll from the Job Creators Network Foundation (JCNF) shows that 67% of small business owners maintain such fears about the economy as it stands today, marking a 10-point increase from sentiments two years ago. In the same poll, participants’ perceptions of economic conditions for their own businesses fell from 70.2 to 68.1. Perception of national conditions fell even more drastically, from 53.2 to 50.4.

Maybe you don’t care about what is happening to our small businesses.

But you should, because close to half of all workers in the United States are employed by small businesses…

Forbes estimates that at least 46% of all employees in the United States, around 61.6 million people in total, are employed by small businesses.

I think that it is quite an ominous sign that the household survey showed that the U.S. economy lost a whopping 408,000 jobs last month.

Sadly, I think that a lot more months like that are coming.

Retailers are also really struggling right now.

In fact, as Mark B. Spiegel recently discussed, major retailer after major retailer has been reporting disappointing sales numbers…

The U.S. economy seems to finally be cracking. This month a slew of retailers (off the top of my head: Target, Lowe’s, Macy’s, Kohl’s, Best Buy and Foot Locker) reported negative year-over-year sales comps, and that’s before adjusting for the inflation that makes them 3% to 4% more negative in “real” terms. Others (Dollar General and Burlington) reported same-store sales comps in the +2% range, but that too was negative when adjusted for inflation, while Walmart and Nordstrom comps managed to roughly keep pace with inflation, but were unable to exceed it.

At one time, Walmart was an unstoppable retail behemoth.

But now even Walmart is closing down stores…

WALMARTS are closing across the country – and retail experts say the cuts are signals of a bleak future for shoppers.

The multi-million dollar corporation has closed nine stores so far this year, which could be a warning sign for other retail giants.

Of course the stores that Walmart is shuttering are just a drop in the bucket compared to what other chains are doing.

As I detailed in an article that I posted last week, we are on pace to lose 7,800 stores in 2024.

When the Drudge Report used the term “retail apocalypse” in one of their headlines on Monday morning, that was not an exaggeration at all.

We really are in the early stages of a historic meltdown.

And the outlook for the months ahead is extremely bleak.

In fact, Harry Dent just told Fox News that we should brace ourselves for “a bigger crash than we got in 2008 to ’09”…

Speaking in an updated interview with Fox News Digital, Dent cautioned that the “everything” bubble has still yet to burst, and it may be a bigger crash than the Great Recession.

“In 1925 to ‘29, it was a natural bubble. There was no stimulus behind that, artificial stimulus per se. So this is new. This has never happened,” Dent said on Tuesday. “What do you do if you want to cure a hangover? You drink more. And that’s what they’ve been doing.”

“Flooding the economy with extra money forever might actually enhance the overall economy long-term. But we’ll only see when we see this bubble burst,” he added. “And again, this bubble has been going 14 years. Instead of most bubbles [going] five to six, it’s been stretched higher, longer. So you’d have to expect a bigger crash than we got in 2008 to ’09.”

Our leaders were able to keep the game going for years by pumping trillions upon trillions of dollars into the system.

But they didn’t fix anything.

Instead, they just delayed the inevitable.

Our entire system really is crumbling all around us, and as it crumbles we are going to see chaos on a scale that most people don’t even want to imagine.

Already, major cities from coast to coast are being terrorized by theft, violence, drugs, homelessness, gangs and anarchy.

If things are this bad already, what is America going to look like once our leaders completely lose control of the economy?

Michael’s new book entitled “Chaos” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.

About the Author: Michael Snyder’s extremely controversial new book entitled “Chaos” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com. He has also written seven other books that are available on Amazon.com including “End Times”, “7 Year Apocalypse”, “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America”, “The Beginning Of The End”, and “Living A Life That Really Matters”. When you purchase any of Michael’s books you help to support the work that he is doing. You can also get his articles by email as soon as he publishes them by subscribing to his Substack newsletter. Michael has published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and he always freely and happily allows others to republish those articles on their own websites. These are such troubled times, and people need hope. John 3:16 tells us about the hope that God has given us through Jesus Christ: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” If you have not already done so, we strongly urge you to invite Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior today.

Retail Bloodbath: More Than 2,600 Store Closings Have Been Announced So Far In 2024

June 6, 2024June 6, 2024 by Michael

Retail stores are being shut down at a staggering rate all over the country. If we stay on the pace that we are on, the total number of stores closed in 2024 will be nearly 40 percent higher than the total number of stores closed in 2023. That is what you call a crisis! Meanwhile, banks are shuttering hundreds of branches from coast to coast, and a “restaurant apocalypse” is sweeping across the nation. Everywhere around us, “space available” signs are going up on buildings that were once considered to be prime commercial real estate. If someone tries to convince you that the U.S. economy is in good shape, just show them this article and ask them why so many once prosperous businesses are closing. Needless to say, they will not be able to win the argument after that.

According to the Daily Mail, nearly 2,600 store closings were announced during the first four months of 2024…

US retailers have announced the closure of almost 2,600 stores in 2024 – just four months into the year.

Big names including Macy’s, Walmart, Walgreens, Foot Locker and 7-Eleven have all said they are closing shops.

But discount stores like Family Dollar and bankrupt 99 Cents Only have been worst hit, as have drugstores like CVS and Rite Aid.

If the U.S. economy is heading in the right direction, why are many of the largest retail chains in the U.S. shutting down stores?

That wouldn’t make any sense at all.

If this pace remains constant throughout the rest of this year, we would hit a grand total of approximately 7,800 store closing announcements by the end of 2024…

If the closures were to continue at the same rate for the rest of the year they would total 7,800 in 2024 – almost 40 percent more than the total in 2023.

When the number of retail stores shutting down goes up by 40 percent in a single year, that is a sign that your economy is really “booming”, eh?

Sadly, we are losing more stores with each passing day.

On Thursday, we learned that a major convenience store chain in Wisconsin has decided to close down all of their locations…

Wisconsin convenience store and gas station chain The Store is being forced to close all of its 25 locations.

The Store, established in 1976, will shutter its businesses at the end of July. It also has locations in Michigan.

In some cases, stores are being closed down due to rapidly slowing economic conditions.

But in other cases, stores are being permanently shuttered due to the unprecedented wave of retail theft that never seems to end.

Earlier this week, I was intrigued by an article that was cleverly titled “Lego thefts across Southern California leave police trying to piece together clues”…

Believe it or not, the Lego sets and figurines collecting dust in your childhood bedroom could fetch a pretty penny.

So pretty, in fact, that two suspects have allegedly stolen more than $100,000 in Lego merchandise from six Bricks & Minifigs stores across Southern California.

The Lego reseller, which stocks mini figures, accessories and bricks, has more than 100 outlets across the U.S.

The Riverside store was the first one burglarized, with the suspects hitting it April 3, followed by Ontario on April 12, Whittier on May 3, Irvine on May 9 and the Costa Mesa and Fullerton locations on June 1, Whittier store owner Katie Leuschner said.

“Shrink” is costing U.S. retailers more than 100 billion dollars a year at this point.

In this sort of an environment, it is difficult for any retailers to be profitable, and that is especially true in our major cities.

Meanwhile, our banks are shutting down branches at a feverish rate.

So far this year, more than 400 locations have been permanently closed…

US banks closed 79 branches in just six weeks – as the industry increasingly offers services online.

The figures suggest the axing of costly bricks-and-mortar locations will continue, with total closures so far for 2024 above 400.

California is worst affected by the recent closures with 20 registered shutterings between April 20 and June 1.

When banks get into trouble, they get really tight with their money, they fire workers, and they close branches.

So expect to see a lot more branches get shuttered during the months ahead.

We are also in the midst of a “restaurant apocalypse”, and that is very bad news if you like to eat out a lot.

For example, Red Lobster recently closed 93 locations earlier this year, and now we have learned that 135 more are on the brink of being canned if they continue to lose money…

Red Lobster is ready to close another batch of more than 100 restaurants if it is unable to renegotiate cheaper rent with its landlords.

The seafood chain abruptly closed 93 of its 700-odd restaurants on May 13 – and the next week filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the hope it can restructure its debts.

New court documents reveal that there are another 135 restaurants that bosses say will keep losing money if leases stay as they are, Restaurant Business reported. The option is for the company to pay less rent or shut them.

If I owned a restaurant chain, a bank, or a major retailer, I would be trimming locations too.

Economic conditions are horrible, theft is absolutely rampant, and the violence in our streets is rapidly approaching levels only seen in the most dangerous areas of the planet.

Earlier this week, Collin Rugg posted an account of a particularly alarming incident that just happened in Chicago…

A woman identified as ‘Nina’ says she was walking down the street when she got surrounded by teens who assaulted her.

Her crime? Walking down the wrong street.

“We own the street, we own the street. You can’t just walk around prancing in your little dress,” the gang of about 10 said.

They then held her husband back as they beat her, ripped out her hair, pepper sprayed her face and kicked her in the stomach.

“First someone approached him and hit his head, punched him in the head, and he looked back and he looked at me and told me ‘run’.”

“Another lady came to me and dragged me with my hair on the ground.”

“I started screaming she started pepper-spraying me right in the face, in the eyes.”

“Another person starts stomping all over me, and my husband ran towards me to save me and over 10 people held him.”

She lost her baby hours later.

For a long time, I have been warning that “chaos” would be coming to the streets of America.

Now it is here.

And it is getting worse every single day.

Unfortunately, most Americans still don’t understand the fundamental transformation that is happening to our society and they still believe that our leaders will be able to return things to “normal” eventually.

Michael’s new book entitled “Chaos” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.

Money Is Power, And The Global Balance Of Power Is Rapidly Shifting In Favor Of The Ultra-Wealthy Elite

June 5, 2024 by Michael

If you have enough money, you can buy just about anything. And when you are in a position where you can buy just about anything, you wield an enormous amount of raw power. Today, our world is completely and utterly dominated by those at the very top of the economic pyramid. Those in the top one percent of the top one percent are pretty much able to do whatever they want, and the rest of us are pretty much powerless to stop them. Unfortunately, the gap between the ultra-wealthy elite and the rest of us just continues to get even larger. Last year, the total wealth of the world’s millionaires reached a staggering 86.8 trillion dollars…

The world has never had so many rich people and their investments in soaring stock markets have made them wealthier than ever recorded, according to a study published on Wednesday.

The number of “high net worth individuals” (HNWI) — defined as people with liquid assets of at least $1 million — rose by 5.1 percent last year to 22.8 million, according to consulting firm Capgemini.

Their total wealth reached $86.8 trillion in 2023, a 4.7 percent increase from the previous year, according to the annual World Wealth Report.

Meanwhile, 5 billion people have gotten poorer since the start of the pandemic…

Since 2020, the richest five men in the world have doubled their fortunes. During the same period, almost 5 billion people globally have become poorer.

How much power do the hundreds of millions of people around the world that are living on less than two dollars a day have compared to the billionaires in the western world that are constantly making headlines?

The truth is that they run the world and the rest of us are just living in it.

Here in the United States, the colossal gap between CEO pay and worker pay got even larger last year…

Bosses have always made more money than workers. But the gap between CEOs and employees is growing.

The median CEO in the S&P 500 was paid 196 times as much as the median employee in 2023, according to an analysis by Equilar and The Associated Press.

That’s up from a ratio of 185 in 2022.

It would be a good thing if the rich were getting richer as long as everyone else was getting richer as well.

But instead, poverty is literally exploding all around us.

In 2020, there were approximately 140 homeless camps in Oakland, California.

Since that time, the city has closed 537 homeless camps, but there are still approximately 1,500 remaining all over the city…

Oakland officials passed a policy in 2020 to regulate homeless encampments when there were about 140 camps. The policy was created to prohibit encampments in specific areas of the city, including proximity to businesses, schools, playgrounds, traffic lanes, bike paths, housing and playgrounds.

Any encampments in those prohibited areas were supposed to be vacated, with the city offering shelter before evacuating the camp.

Since then, the city has closed 537 homeless camps with approximately 1,500 remaining, according to a city report.

I feel so bad for the law-abiding citizens that still live in Oakland.

Conditions have become so precarious that one construction company actually “refused to finish its pothole paving job because it got ‘too dangerous’ for its workers”…

Frustrated Oakland residents are in the hole after a construction crew quit and refused to finish its pothole paving job because it got ‘too dangerous’ for its workers – as other businesses flee the Bay Area over the same concerns.

Residents in the Sobrante Park area in East Oakland said they weren’t even notified after the third-party general contractor decided to abandon the project before repaving the streets, leaving large potholes and dangerous loose gravel all over the neighborhood since mid-May.

If you still have a nice home and plenty of money, good for you.

But you should understand that you are solidly in the minority at this point.

Of course our politicians care far more about the economic health of the elite than anyone else, because it is the elite that fund their campaigns.

So even though just about all the rest of us have seen our standard of living go way down, in recent years there has been an all-out effort to prop up the stock market because that is where the elite have much of their wealth.

Today, the wealthiest 10 percent of all Americans own 93 percent of all the stocks.

And the poorest 50 percent of all Americans own just 1 percent of all the stocks.

The stock market wealth that the entire bottom half of the country controls is basically just a rounding error compared to the enormous holdings of the elite.

Unfortunately for the elite, it appears that trouble may be brewing for the financial markets…

The US stock market is shrinking, and investors are pulling their money out at a near-record pace as storm clouds gather over the US economy.

That means the titans of Wall Street may have to contend with choppy water as they cruise toward their Nantucket getaways this year.

In fact, Bank of America says that their customers have been pulling large amounts of money out of stocks for five consecutive weeks…

Bank of America analysts said on Tuesday that their clients have now been large net sellers of US stocks for five weeks in a row. Just last week, they sold off $5.7 billion more in stocks than they purchased, the highest outflow since last July.

Bank of America recorded the second largest sell-off of tech stocks in their history last week. And while one week does not a trend make, it does stand in stark contrast with the Magnificent Seven fervor that ensnared Wall Street mere months ago.

Whether it happens sooner or later, it is inevitable that America’s financial idols will come crashing down at some point.

But for most of the country, it feels like the economy has already crashed.

Our cost of living crisis has become exceedingly painful, our entire society is drowning in debt, and poverty and homelessness are exploding all around us.

Just about the only people that are still doing really well are those that are at the very top of the food chain.

When you hear that “the economy is booming”, those are the people they are talking about.

But just like all the rest of us, the elite will not be able to escape the period of tremendous global chaos that is ahead of us.

Like I said, money can buy you just about anything, but it cannot purchase a free pass from the day of reckoning that is rapidly approaching.

Michael’s new book entitled “Chaos” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.

Little By Little, The Economy Has Declined To A Point Where Almost Everyone Is Struggling

June 4, 2024June 4, 2024 by Michael

It happened so gradually that a lot of people didn’t even realize what was happening. The cost of living just kept rising faster than paychecks were, and little by little our standard of living just kept going down. Now we have reached a stage where the ultra-wealthy are thriving but almost everyone else is struggling. For most people, it is a real fight just to pay the bills from month to month. The majority of the population is deep in debt, and meanwhile the cost of just about everything is going up and up. Millions of Americans feel like they are drowning financially, and there is no easy way out. Sadly, many of them don’t even realize that the game was designed to get them on to a hamster wheel and keep them running for as long as possible.

When I was a kid, the United States had a very large and very prosperous middle class.

Life certainly wasn’t perfect in those days, but just about everyone that I knew could afford to live a comfortable middle class lifestyle.

Sadly, now everything has changed.

According to a survey that was just conducted by Seven Letter Insight, 65 percent of Americans “who earn more than 200% of the federal poverty level” admit that they are struggling financially…

In the large poll of 2,500 adults, 65% of people who earn more than 200% of the federal poverty level — that’s at least $60,000 for a family of four, often considered middle class — said they are struggling financially.

If 65 percent of those that “earn more than 200% of the federal poverty level” are struggling, what about those that earn less than that?

Needless to say, almost all of them are struggling.

That same survey discovered that 46 percent of Americans don’t even have 500 dollars saved up…

About 40% of respondents were unable to plan beyond their next paycheck, and 46% didn’t have $500 saved. The February poll found that more than half said it’s at least somewhat difficult to manage current levels of debt.

Over the past couple of years, the stock market has been “booming” and the ultra-wealthy have been getting richer and richer.

But things have been getting worse for virtually all the rest of us.

According to Zillow, over the past four years “the monthly mortgage payment on a typical U.S. home has nearly doubled”…

The real estate firm Zillow reports that since January 2020, the monthly mortgage payment on a typical U.S. home has nearly doubled. It’s up 96% in just four years.

According to Zillow, a typical buyer will now pay nearly $2,200 a month, with a 10% down payment. Meaning, homeownership now costs well above the 30% of median income that was once thought to equate to “affordable” housing cost in America.

Has your income doubled over the past four years?

If not, you are falling behind.

The American people absolutely hate what is being done to their standard of living.

In fact, during a recent interview Neel Kashkari astutely observed that Americans “really, viscerally hate high inflation”…

Neel Kashkari, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, says one of the things he has learned in the past few years is that consumers would rather see the economy fall into a recession than to continue to suffer the pain of soaring prices.

“The American people – and maybe people in Europe, equally – really hate high inflation,” Kashkari told the Financial Times podcast “The Economics Show with Soumaya Keynes” last week. “I mean, really, viscerally hate high inflation.”

He is right.

I really detest inflation.

I am sure that you do too.

But what he didn’t mention is that the Federal Reserve and our politicians in Washington are responsible for creating the epic cost of living crisis that we are currently facing.

They caused this mess, and now they don’t seem to have any solutions for cleaning it up.

Meanwhile, economic activity just continues to slow down.

On Tuesday, we learned that the number of job openings in the U.S. has fallen to the lowest level in more than 3 years…

Job openings fell more than forecast in April, signaling a potential weakening in the labor market that could provide the Federal Reserve with more impetus to start lowering interest rates.

The Labor Department’s Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey released Tuesday showed that the level of employment vacancies slipped to 8.06 million for the month, down by nearly 300,000 from March and close to 19% lower than a year ago.

Moreover, the total marked the lowest since February 2021.

And more workers are being dumped into the streets with each passing day.

For example, Rubio’s Coastal Grill just announced that it will be permanently closing 48 locations in the state of California…

California’s $20-an-hour fast food minimum wage has its first casualty.

Mexican chain Rubio’s Coastal Grill is shuttering 48 restaurants in the state – because of the ‘rising cost of doing business in California’.

‘While painful, the store closures are a necessary step in our strategic long-term plan to position Rubio’s for success for years to come,’ a Rubio’s spokesperson added.

As this year rolls along, we will see a lot more stories like this.

For a long time, our leaders were able to keep the party going by flooding the system with money.

But now inflation is out of control and we have reached the terminal phase of the “greatest credit bubble in human history”…

Mark Spitznagel, chief investment officer of Universa Investments, is known for being a “permabear” when it comes to the stock market outlook.

Spitznagel told Bloomberg in an earlier interview that we’re witnessing the “greatest credit bubble in human history.”

“Credit bubbles end. They pop. There’s no way to stop them from popping,” he said, adding that the Fed has brought the economy to a place “where there’s no turning back.”

Spitznagel is right on target.

There really is no turning back now.

Our leaders have wrecked the greatest economic machine in the history of the world.

What is ahead of us is a tremendous amount of pain.

So if you think that things are bad now, just wait until you see what is coming next.

For years, little by little our standard of living has been collapsing.

But now we are entering a time when our economic slide will become an economic avalanche.

Decades of absolutely disastrous decisions have brought us to this point, and now we shall truly reap what we have sown.

Michael’s new book entitled “Chaos” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.

During The Great Depression They Were Called “Hoovervilles”, But Today America’s Shantytowns Are Called “Bidenvilles”

June 2, 2024June 2, 2024 by Michael

To those at the bottom of America’s economic pyramid, it feels like the economy has already collapsed. When you can’t afford to put a roof over your head and you barely have enough food to eat, nothing else really matters. During the Great Depression of the 1930s, millions of homeless Americans created large shantytowns known as “Hoovervilles” all over America. Unfortunately, we are witnessing the same thing today. Our homeless population is rapidly exploding, and those that have nowhere to live are creating shelters for themselves out of wood, cardboard boxes, tents, tarps, construction materials and whatever else they can find. In some cases, very large shantytown communities are being established, and they are primarily populated by our young adults…

During the Great Depression (1929 to 1933), 48 percent of the nation was homeless, living with relatives or in “shantytowns,” “Hoovervilles.” Today, between 47 and 52 percent of young adults are homeless, living with parents or shelters, a direct result of Biden’s radical overspending, energy and immigration policies, inflation, and high interest, turning America into a giant “Bidenville.”

One “Bidenville” that has been getting a lot of attention recently is located in Oakland, California.

A video of that “Bidenville” that was posted on social media on May 31st shows “massive temporary houses built along service roads”…

Shocking footage has emerged showing a gigantic ‘shantytown’ that has sprung up in Oakland, as the California city’s slide into crime-ravaged squalor continues.

Michael Oxford, the host of CaliBased, posted a video on May 31 of massive temporary houses built along service roads that open up into main roads in Hooverville, Oakland.

The footage showed trash strewn around scores of houses that were built of wood, tarp and other discarded materials.

I write about this stuff all the time, but it is still hard to believe that so many people are living in third world conditions in the United States of America in 2024.

Parts of Oakland are worse than a third world country.

They just allow people to live in absolute squalor, wherever they choose.

This looks like Hooverville during the great depression.

Welcome to Oakland’s very own Gavinville. pic.twitter.com/L58uK2E6Sh

— Michael Oxford – AKA The Santa Cruz Mountain Goat (@SCMountainGoat) June 1, 2024

The man that shot the video, Michael Oxford, used the term “absolute squalor” to describe the conditions that he witnessed…

Particularly shocking was just how large the ‘shantytown’ is, with a lengthy stretch of road in the Bay Area city covered with the makeshift dwellings.

Oxford could be heard calling the area a ‘shantytown’ that is ‘absolutely mindboggling,’ as he remarked how ‘insane it is that [city officials] allow this.’

He captioned the video, ‘Parts of Oakland are worse than a third world country. They just allow people to live in absolute squalor, wherever they choose.

If you live in “wealthy America”, you may never even drive into areas where people are living like this.

Your reality may be filled with tree-lined streets and rich people sipping coffee.

But in the worst areas of Oakland, the lawlessness never ends.

In fact, authorities in Oakland recently removed traffic lights at one major intersection and replaced them with stop signs because thieves were constantly stealing copper wire from the electrical boxes…

The city of Oakland recently removed traffic lights from one busy intersection and replaced them with stop signs after the electrical boxes that controlled the traffic lights were repeatedly tampered with and copper from them was stolen.

Local residents and those who own businesses in the area say the issue with the traffic lights stems from the nearby homeless encampment, which has grown over the years.

The owner of a vehicle repair shop on the corner of the intersection, Tam Le, said the city is signaling that it is ‘giving up on us,’ by installing the stop signs.

If you want someone to blame for this mess, you can blame the politicians in Washington.

Thanks to the horrific inflation that they have created, approximately a quarter of the population in California is either living in poverty or is very close to living in poverty…

Biden needn’t worry about losing California to Trump, but it has one of the nation’s highest rates of inflation, according to Moody’s Analytics, worsening its already outlandishly high costs of housing and other living expenses. It’s the biggest factor in California having the highest level of functional poverty of any state, 13.2% according to the U.S. Census Bureau, about 50% higher than the national rate.

The Public Policy Institute of California, using similar statistical methodology, has found that a quarter of Californians are either living in poverty or financially close. More recently, the PPIC has explored the impact of inflation, especially on California families which struggle to pay for housing, food and other necessities.

Sadly, this is just the beginning, because our economy is going downhill really fast.

In May, pending home sales plunged to a depressingly low level…

Well, the analysts had the direction right but magnitude was way off as pending home sales plunged 7.7% MoM – the biggest drop since Feb 2021 (and below the lowest estimate), leaving sales down 0.7% YoY…

This is the 29th straight month of YoY declines for non-seasonally-adjusted pending home sales.

This MoM decline pushed the Pending Home Sales Index back to record lows…

Meanwhile, Zero Hedge reported that the Chicago PMI index fell so low in May that it suggested that “the economy is in a depression”…

After unexpectedly slumping last month to 37.9, the Chicago PMI index cratered even more unexpectedly in May, when it defied hopes of a rebound to 41.5, and instead tumbled even more, sliding to a cycle low of 35.4 which was not only below the lowest estimate, but was staggeringly low. To get a sense of just how low, the last two times it printed here was during the peak of the covid and global financial crises…

… which seems to suggest that at least according to Chicago-based purchasing managers, the economy is in a depression.

I would agree with that assessment.

Things are getting really bad out there.

To top everything off, in May the Dallas Fed Services Sector survey was in contraction territory for the 24th month in a row…

Despite Bernstein and Biden demanding the great unwashed realize just how great they have it in America, this morning’s Dallas Fed Services Sector survey offers some insights from actual real people in the actual real world trying to do actual real business… and it’s not pretty.

For two straight years (24 straight months), the Texas Services sector has been in contraction (below zero) with May’s -12.1 print worse than expected. For context, the Great Recession of 2008/2009 also saw 24 straight months of negative prints…

But if you live in “wealthy America”, you may not care about these numbers because you still live in a nice home and you still have plenty of nice things.

Unfortunately, the number of people that can afford to live in “wealthy America” is shrinking with each passing day.

And the gap between the wealthy and the rest of us just continues to get larger and larger.

Ultimately, the stage is being set for a societal meltdown of absolutely epic proportions.

The bottom 50 percent of the population only owns just 2.6 percent of all the wealth, and they are becoming very restless.

When people have nothing left to lose, they become very desperate, and very desperate people do very desperate things.

Michael’s new book entitled “Chaos” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.

The World Has Accumulated A $315 Trillion Mountain Of Debt, And Global Events Will Soon Bring It Crashing Down

May 29, 2024 by Michael

I suppose that congratulations are in order. It is no small feat to pile up a debt of $315,000,000,000,000, and we will never see a mountain of debt of this magnitude ever again after it comes crashing down. Even though delinquency rates are rising all over the world, as long as conditions remain at least somewhat relatively stable the game will be able to continue. Unfortunately, conditions won’t be relatively stable for long. Global events have started to accelerate significantly, and that is really going to shake things up in the months ahead.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Michael’s new book entitled “Chaos” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.

America In 2024: Fast Food Is A “Luxury”, 11 Million Children Live In Poverty, And 1000s Of Stores Are Closing

May 26, 2024May 26, 2024 by Michael

Little by little, our standard of living has been eroding. A couple decades ago, we had the largest and most prosperous middle class in the history of the world, but now most of the country is struggling. At this point, fast food is considered to be a “luxury”, 11 million children are living in poverty, and thousands of stores are permanently shutting down all over the United States because consumers have so little discretionary income these days. We are in the midst of a historic cost of living crisis, and those at the bottom of the economic food chain are being hit the hardest.

The ultra-wealthy don’t really care that food costs have been soaring, but for those that are barely scraping by from month to month it makes an enormous difference.

Once upon a time, fast food restaurants were where those that were struggling went to eat.

But now fast food is considered to be a “luxury” in 2024, and that is because fast food prices have gone absolutely haywire…

A Big Mac sandwich at McDonald’s, for example, cost $3.99 in 2019. Now, that price has more than doubled to $8.29, according to Fast Food Menu Prices, an online tracker.

Gone, too, are the days of the $5 Footlong at Subway. A BLT Footlong that cost $5.50 in 2019 now costs customers $8.49 in 2024, though prices can vary by location. Additionally, Chipotle’s beloved chicken burrito that cost $6.50 in 2019 now runs customers $10.70.

Fast-food executives have pointed to rising wages and increased costs for ingredients as factors driving up the prices on their menus.

I am sitting here looking at those numbers and I still can’t wrap my head around them.

I never imagined that I would see the day when it took more than 8 dollars to buy a Big Mac.

That is insane!

A different survey that was recently conducted by Lending Tree discovered that almost 80 percent of all Americans believe that fast food is a “luxury item” now…

Nearly 80 percent of Americans now consider fast food to be a “luxury item” as families feel the squeeze from the Biden regime’s failing economy.

According to a survey from Lending Tree of around 2,000 adults, what was once considered an affordable option for low-income workers is fast becoming the opposite.

Meanwhile, the number of American children living in poverty continues to increase with each passing day.

If you can believe it, we are being told that over 11 million U.S. children are now living in poverty…

More than 11 million children were estimated to be living in poverty in 2021, according to U.S. Census Bureau data published by the Children’s Defense Fund.

That equates to around one in seven children in the U.S., or 15.3 percent. It’s a high toll, and one even higher than the adult population, which was 10.5 percent for 19-64 year olds that year and 10.3 percent for adults aged 65+.

According to an analysis by the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, this difference is due to factors such as the “cost of caregiving and its responsibilities, transitions to a single parenthood household, unemployment of parents, and disabilities of family members.”

Today, approximately 40 percent of the entire country is considered to be either living in poverty or among the ranks of “the working poor”, and 42 million Americans are on food stamps.

We now have an absolutely gigantic “underclass” that is largely made up of people that were once solidly middle class.

The rapidly rising cost of living is just shredding families from coast to coast.

In Montana, one senior is incredibly frustrated because his property taxes have increased by 790 percent over the past several years…

A senior from Montana has delivered a viral speech about the sorry state of property taxes in the Treasure State.

“I’m on Social Security, I’m 68-years-old and working just to pay my taxes,” says Kurt, in a clip shared on TikTok by Ryan Busse, who is running to be the next governor of Montana.

Kurt claims that over the last couple of years, his annual property taxes have soared from $895 to almost $8,000 — an increase of around 790% — which he says is like paying almost “$700 a month rent to the state to live in our own house.” The state has an Elderly Homeowner/Renter Tax Credit, and the maximum credit is $1,150.

His property taxes have skyrocketed because property values have skyrocketed.

And property values have skyrocketed because our leaders flooded the system with way too much money.

Small businesses are being monkey-hammered by inflation as well.

In fact, one recent survey found that 86 percent of all U.S. small businesses say that they are being hurt by inflation…

An overwhelming majority of small business owners say they are being hurt by rising prices.

The new survey released Wednesday by small business network Alignable shows 86% reporting being hurt by high costs with only 6% saying they are thriving and not struggling.

Alignable surveyed more than 3,000 business owners from mid-April to mid-May and found that they overwhelmingly lament the burden of inflation.

Dollar stores in particular are being hit really hard by rising costs.

For example, 99 Cents Only has decided to close all of their stores because conditions have changed so dramatically…

For years, dollar stores were a fixture in nearly every strip mall in California, offering cheap household goods, bread and produce, and even toys and gifts.

But if it seems like your favorite dollar store is heading for the exit, you’re not wrong.

2024 may be their swan song.

In April, California-based 99 Cents Only announced it was closing all 371 locations after decades in business. The retailer blamed economic factors, including rising levels of “shrink,” inflation, and shifting consumer demand that has presented “significant and lasting challenges.”

Not to be outdone, Dollar Tree has announced that it will be closing about 1,000 stores…

Dollar Tree, which owns Family Dollar, recently said it will close nearly 1,000 stores. That’s after Dollar Tree raised prices in the past couple of years for the first time in decades.

Overall, so far in 2024 retailers have already announced that they will be closing nearly 3,200 stores, and we haven’t even reached the mid-point of the year yet…

The retail industry is going through a tough time as it copes with inflation-weary consumers and a rash of bankruptcies, prompting chains to announce the closures of almost 3,200 brick-and-mortar stores so far in 2024, according to a new analysis.

That’s a 24% increase from a year ago, according to a report from retail data provider CoreSight, which tracks store closures and openings across the U.S.

The final countdown for the U.S. economy has begun, but most Americans do not even realize what is happening.

Most Americans just assume that our leaders can fix things by printing even more money and that conditions will “return to normal” eventually.

But the truth is that there isn’t going to be a “return to normal”, because this is about as “normal” as things are going to get.

It has taken decades of horrendous decisions to get us to this point, and now we are steamrolling toward economic oblivion.

If you think that our leaders in Washington will be able to turn this ship around, you are just being delusional.

Michael’s new book entitled “Chaos” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.

America’s Housing Market Is In A Deep Freeze

May 22, 2024May 22, 2024 by Michael

This is a very bad time for those that work in the real estate industry. Thanks to the Federal Reserve, mortgage rates are much higher than they were a couple of years ago, and this has deeply frozen America’s housing market. Millions upon millions of U.S. homeowners are currently paying off fixed rate mortgages that were financed when mortgage rates were at historic lows. If you are one of those homeowners, selling your current home and buying another home that will come with a mortgage at a much higher rate would be very painful financially. So vast numbers of current homeowners feel “locked in” to their current homes. At this point, the number of Americans that are selling homes has fallen to a depressingly low level, and the number of Americans that are buying homes has fallen to a depressingly low level. This isn’t going to change until interest rates go down significantly, but the Federal Reserve is very hesitant to reduce interest rates because of the nightmarish cost of living crisis that we are facing. So our housing market will probably continue to be in a deep freeze for the foreseeable future.

On Wednesday, we learned that sales of existing homes fell once again during the month of April…

Sales of previously owned homes fell by 1.9% to an annual rate of 4.14 million in April, the National Association of Realtors said Wednesday.

That’s the number of homes that would be sold over an entire year if sales took place at the same rate every month as in April. The numbers are seasonally adjusted.

The pace of sales fell short of expectations on Wall Street, which was forecasting a 4.21 million pace for April.

As Zero Hedge has pointed out, sales of existing homes have almost plunged to levels that we last witnessed during the Great Recession of 2008 and 2009.

Normally, when home sales are going down home prices are heading in the same direction, but during the month of April the median price of an existing home actually jumped substantially…

The median price for an existing home in April rose 5.7% to $407,600, as compared with the year before. That’s the highest price recorded for the month of April.

The jump in home prices was the biggest since October 2022.

The reason why this is happening is because it simply does not make financial sense for the vast majority of homeowners to sell their homes right now.

If you got a mortgage when rates were low, that is something that you do not want to give up easily.

According to Zillow, as a result of higher rates the average mortgage payment in the U.S. has almost doubled since January 2020…

A monthly mortgage payment on a typical U.S. home has nearly doubled since January 2020, up 96.4% to $2,188 (assuming a 10% down payment).

I feel so bad for young couples that are looking to buy their very first home in this environment.

My advice would be to keep renting for now and pray that mortgage rates will go down eventually.

Until rates go down, it just doesn’t make sense to buy or sell.

As Lawrence Yun has noted, we are in “new territory as to how the lock-in effect will restrain home sales”…

“When we see these mortgage rates, which is a 300 basis point increase from pre-Covid pace, we are in a new territory as to how the lock-in effect will restrain home sales,” said Lawrence Yun, chief economist for the Realtors.

If the Federal Reserve wants to unfreeze the housing market, the solution is easy.

Slashing interest rates would force mortgage rates down and the housing market would heat up again…

Economists do not expect a significant decline in mortgage rates until the Federal Reserve starts cutting interest rates. The U.S. central bank has raised its benchmark overnight interest rate by 525 basis points since March 2022 to dampen demand in the economy and control inflation.

But the Federal Reserve is not eager to do that, because lower interest rates would just add more fuel to the inflationary pressures that are driving up prices throughout the economy.

So for now, many Americans will just do whatever they have to do to survive in this very harsh environment.

Recently, one 34-year-old woman was discovered living inside a rooftop grocery store sign in Michigan…

Police bodycam footage has been released showing the moment a homeless woman was found squatting inside a Michigan rooftop grocery store sign.

The 34 year old, whose identity remains anonymous, had been living behind the triangle-shaped sign – approximately 5ft wide and 8ft high that has a door accessible from the roof – of the Family Fare supermarket, located in Midland, a city approximately 130 miles north of Detroit.

The woman had turned the crawl space into an apartment, which included flooring the woman had laid down, bedding, a houseplant, clothing, a Keuring coffee maker, a desk, a printer, and a computer. She was resourceful, utilizing a power cord plugged into an outlet on the roof to use the grocery store’s electricity.

I applaud her ingenuity.

And from now on, whenever I see a rooftop store sign I will wonder if someone is living inside.

In the days ahead, all of us are going to have to make the most out of whatever circumstances we find ourselves in.

For the moment, conditions are still at least somewhat relatively stable, but we are rapidly moving into a time of unprecedented global chaos.

In the short-term, I fully expect economic conditions to quickly deteriorate during the second half of this year, and it appears that the American people as a whole are also becoming more pessimistic about our economic future.

This month, consumer confidence is substantially lower than it was last month…

The latest reading of the University of Michigan’s survey showed sentiment plunged to a six-month low of 67.4 in May from a final reading of 77.2 in April as Americans cited stubbornly high inflation and interest rates, as well as fears that unemployment could rise.

The cost of living just continues to soar, businesses are failing all over the country, and more layoff announcements come pouring in with each passing day.

Despite everything that our leaders have done to prop up the economy, we have now reached a breaking point.

So I would very much encourage you to brace yourself for hard times, because economic conditions are going to become very painful during the months ahead.

Michael’s new book entitled “Chaos” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.

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