Money

Welcome To The Real Estate Industry Apocalypse

September 7, 2023 by Michael

Higher interest rates are absolutely strangling the real estate industry, and there is no relief in sight. The sudden shift from a very low interest rate environment to a much higher interest rate environment has paralyzed sales. As I have discussed previously, very few homeowners that are currently locked into a mortgage at a low interest rate want to sell, because buying a home to replace the one that they are selling would mean taking on a mortgage at a much higher rate of interest. And millions of potential home buyers have been chased out of the market because of the exceedingly high mortgage payments that they would be facing if they pulled the trigger on a purchase right now. So sales of previously-owned homes have dropped by more than 32 percent over the past two years. In other words, about a third of the entire previously-owned home market has already been wiped out.

When home sales crash, everybody that works in the real estate industry suffers.

And it turns out that home purchases by investors are falling at an even faster rate. Wall Street Silver posted the following to Twitter earlier this week…

I was stunned when I first saw that, but I also knew that I had to confirm if this was true or not.

And I discovered that it is true…

45%

That’s how much investor purchases of homes have fallen since last year, as of the second quarter, according to data from Redfin, as homebuying looks less profitable than during the pandemic housing boom.

Investors, just like private buyers, think it’s a bad time to buy a home.

We have got a major crisis on our hands, and it is not going to go away any time soon.

Things are even worse on the commercial real estate side.

The Wall Street Journal just published an article entitled “Real-Estate Doom Loop Threatens America’s Banks”, and that headline does not exaggerate the current state of affairs at all.

Commercial real estate prices are plummeting all over the nation, and our banks have trillions of dollars of exposure…

The WSJ analysis put total bank exposure to commercial real estate at $3.6 trillion, which it estimates is 20 percent of their deposits. Holdings of CMBS and loans to nonbank lenders accounted for $623 billion of that total at the end of last year.

In the past decade, regional banks went to town on commercial loans, never expecting how quickly the tide would turn against them. Today, losses on loans are leading banks to cut back on lending, furthering the drop in property prices and more lender losses — in other words, a doom loop.

Banks are already pulling back. Debt origination fell by 52 percent for the second quarter year-over-year, according to Newmark; lending volume among banks fell by 48 percent. M&T Bank said it would reduce commercial lending as nearly 1 in 5 of its loans to office landlords was in trouble.

So many of our financial institutions are going to be in very serious trouble because of this.

If the Federal Reserve were to push interest rates all the way to the floor immediately, that would help.

But instead, Fed officials continue to insist that rates are going to go even higher, and that is going to escalate this crisis into a full-blown real estate apocalypse.

And higher rates will also do an incredible amount of damage throughout the rest of the economy as well. This is a point that the Shark Tank’s Kevin O’Leary made very well during a recent interview with Fox Business…

In a recent interview on Fox Business, Kevin O’Leary, the “Shark Tank” investor slammed so-called “Bidenomics” for leaving small businesses behind. He warned that chaos is about to kick off for the “little guy”, which are the 33.2 million small businesses in America, due to the Federal Reserve’s aggressive rate hikes.

“They’re struggling because the Fed has raised rates up to 5.5% in a matter of months,” O’Leary said. “You’re going to hear a lot of people crying about this in the next few months because they can’t borrow anything anymore and they can’t run their businesses.”

He is right.

Small and mid-size businesses all over America are really struggling right now.

Economic activity is slowing down all around us, and they are starting to lay off workers.

In fact, in just the past two months the U.S. has lost a whopping 670,000 full-time jobs…

Well, one look at this month’s adjustment and it’s literally a shocker: you will not hear anyone from the Biden admin or associated economist cheerleaders mention this, but the BLS reported that in August the number of full-time jobs dropped again, sliding by 85K to 134.2 million, and followed the whopping 585K plunge in July which brings the two-month total drop in full-time jobs to a whopping 670K, the biggest 2-month plunge since the covid lockdowns in early 2020 when 12.5 million full-time jobs were lost in one month!

When the official numbers that the government gives us start looking this bad, you know that the hour is late.

And the job cuts just keep on coming. On Wednesday, we learned that Roku will be conducting a third round of layoffs…

Video streaming company Roku shares spiked Wednesday after it announced plans to lay off more than 300 people, or about 10% of its workforce, and pull certain content from its streaming platform to ease operating expenses.

This is the third round of layoffs from Roku in recent months after the company let go of about 400 employees total between November and March. The company had roughly 3,600 full-time employees across 14 countries at the end of last year, according to its annual report.

I actually really like Roku, and so I hope they can turn things around.

But the reality of the matter is that everyone is going to have to deal with the very hard times that are now upon us.

Hordes of middle class Americans are being pushed into poverty, and hordes of impoverished Americans are being forced into the streets.

So far this year, we have actually seen “the biggest ever spike in homeless people living on the streets”…

The United States has seen the biggest ever spike in homeless people living on the streets – as preliminary figures showed a record 11 percent increase in one year.

There are nearly 600,000 rough sleepers across cities and towns in America, and the jump from 2022 to 2023 so far is the highest since the government started tracking the data in 2007, according to the WSJ.

Places like Oakland and San Francisco in California have become hotbeds for homelessness, as people living on the streets are like ‘drug tourists’ who arrive to have easy access to narcotics.

But this isn’t supposed to be happening.

The Biden administration told us over and over again that “Bidenomics” was working.

Of course the truth is that we have now entered the very early chapters of a full-blown economic nightmare.

Things are going to get a whole lot worse for the real estate industry.

And things are going to get a whole lot worse for the economy as a whole.

So I hope that you have been getting prepared for what is ahead, because most Americans are going to get completely blind-sided by what is coming.

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

About the Author: My name is Michael and my brand new book entitled “End Times” is now available on Amazon.com. In addition to my new book I have written six other books that are available on Amazon.com including “7 Year Apocalypse”, “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America”, “The Beginning Of The End”, and “Living A Life That Really Matters”. (#CommissionsEarned) When you purchase any of these books you help to support the work that I am doing, and one way that you can really help is by sending copies as gifts to family and friends. Time is short, and I need help getting these warnings into the hands of as many people as possible. I have also started a brand new Substack newsletter, and I encourage you to subscribe so that you won’t miss any of my articles. I have published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and the articles that I publish on those sites are republished on dozens of other prominent websites all over the globe. I always freely and happily allow others to republish my articles on their own websites, but I also ask that they include this “About the Author” section with each article. The material contained in this article is for general information purposes only, and readers should consult licensed professionals before making any legal, business, financial or health decisions. I encourage you to follow me on social media on Facebook and Twitter, and any way that you can share these articles with others is definitely a great help. These are such troubled times, and people need hope. John 3:16 tells us about the hope that God has given us through Jesus Christ: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” If you have not already done so, I strongly urge you to invite Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior today.

Scientists Have Created A Human “Entity” That Has No Mother Or Father

September 6, 2023September 6, 2023 by Michael

Scientists all over the world continue to “play God”, and we are all going to have to live with the consequences. Every single day, incredibly bizarre experiments are being conducted in secret laboratories all over the planet. I have frequently warned my readers about the very deadly diseases that are being developed in such laboratories, but other types of extremely sick experiments are happening as well. For example, it is being reported that one team of researchers has now been able to create a human “entity” that does not have a mother or a father. In fact, it was created “without using sperm, an egg or a womb”…

Scientists report they have grown the early stages of a human embryo-like entity without using sperm, an egg or a womb.

The ’embryo model’ even releases hormones that triggered a positive pregnancy test.

This is like something out of a science fiction novel.

Why in the world would they even consider doing something like this?

They are telling us that using such “entities” will make medical research easier, and frankly that makes me want to vomit.

There is no way that doing this sort of thing should be legal.

But it is.

This team of researchers was able to create a human “entity” without a mother or a father by starting with naive stem cells…

Instead of a sperm and egg, the starting material was naive stem cells which were reprogrammed to gain the potential to become any type of tissue in the body.

According to the BBC, chemicals were used to encourage these stem cells to develop into four unique cell types that are involved in the earliest stages of human embryo development…

epiblast cells, which become the embryo proper (or foetus)
trophoblast cells, which become the placenta
hypoblast cells, which become the supportive yolk sac
extraembryonic mesoderm cells

Those cell types were then “mixed in a precise ratio”, and what happened next is extremely alarming…

A total of 120 of these cells were mixed in a precise ratio – and then, the scientists step back and watch.

About 1% of the mixture began the journey of spontaneously assembling themselves into a structure that resembles, but is not identical to, a human embryo.

Professor Jacob Hanna of the Weizmann Institute is the leader of the team that conducted this research, and he claims that the “entity” which was produced “is really a textbook image of a human day-14 embryo”…

‘This is really a textbook image of a human day-14 embryo, [which] hasn’t been done before,’ said Professor Hanna.

If such an entity can survive to that stage, could it go all the way and actually become a full-blown baby?

Now that this breakthrough has been achieved, it is just a matter of time before someone tries to do that.

And just imagine the implications if this eventually starts happening on a widespread basis.

Babies could literally be grown on a massive scale all over the globe.

Instead of having children the natural way, parents could just order a baby that meets certain specifications.

And any babies that came out with “defects” would inevitably be discarded.

Alternatively, it is easy to imagine entire armies being “grown” by tyrannical rulers just like we have seen in certain science fiction movies.

Would such “entities” be truly human?

Would they even have souls?

There is so much that we don’t know, and hopefully this sort of work will be banned so that we will never find out.

Unfortunately, there is very little holding the scientific community back at this point.

Most of the general population has no idea what is going on in these secret labs, and most of our politicians don’t seem to care.

And so “science” will continue to advance all over the globe with very little resistance at all.

In addition to experiments that are creating new life, researchers are also searching for ways to cheat death.

In recent years, swapping blood with the young has become a very hot trend among America’s billionaires. Here is just one example…

Until recently, Bryan Johnson was paying hundreds of thousands of dollars to infuse one litre of his teenage son’s youthful plasma into his own ageing blood stream every month. “I’ve never paid more attention to what he’s eating … because that was going into my body,” the 46-year-old American tech entrepreneur says on new podcast The Immortals. He also pumped his own plasma into his 70-year-old father’s body to help improve his declining physical and cognitive health: “It was one of the most meaningful moments in his entire life. And it was the same for me.” Johnson continues to pay $2m a year for a research team to investigate how we can live longer – and he is certainly not the only rich guy in Silicon Valley dedicated to the search for eternal life.

Guys like Johnson have more money than they will ever need.

But they know that their days are limited.

So in a desperate attempt to “buy more time”, they are literally injecting the blood of young people into their own veins.

This is another thing that shouldn’t be done.

And it is probably dangerous.

But nobody is going to stop them.

In fact, the pace of scientific change will continue to march forward at an exponential rate.

Given enough time, our world would be transformed into something stranger than anything that Hollywood has ever dreamed up.

But our scientists won’t have enough time to do that, because the truth is that time is running out for our society.

Our self-destructive tendencies will soon absolutely overwhelm us, and no amount of “research” will be able to turn things around at that point.

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

This Is How Bad Things Have Become In America…

September 5, 2023 by Michael

Can you imagine what tourists must think when they come to this country? They spend a lot of money to fly all the way over here, and they are hoping to have amazing experiences that they will always remember. But instead, they quickly realize that the cities that they have come to see are rapidly degenerating. Today, our major cities are filthy, they are teeming with predators, and violent crime is completely out of control. Let me give you an example of what I am talking about. New York City is the financial capital of the world, and millions of tourists still visit each year. But now the Big Apple has such an enormous rat problem “that rat tourism is fast becoming a boom industry”…

As the city grapples with a major rat problem – sightings doubled last year, prompting the mayor to advertise for a “somewhat bloodthirsty” head rat-catcher in December – the rodent issue is, according to some, New York’s latest must-experience trend.

As visitors to New York demand rat action, some of the city’s tour guides have started to add stops at notoriously infested sites, the New York Post reported this week.

It means that rat tourism is fast becoming a boom industry.

One study concluded that there are about 3 million rats in New York City today.

And with each passing day, the population grows even larger.

The east coast may have rats, but if you want to really have an experience with the crime wave that is sweeping across America the best place to do that is the west coast.

Some tourists from Malta recently found that out the hard way. When they visited a beach in the San Francisco area, they had all of their possessions stolen from their vehicles within just 10 minutes…

Numerous groups of tourists visiting a beach in San Francisco had all their belongings stolen from their cars, including their passports, while at the ocean for just minutes.

On their second day in San Francisco, a group of tourists from Malta contemplated cutting their trip short and returning to Europe after the brazen smash and grab that occurred in broad daylight within a mere 10-minute window.

Another group from Europe was able to top that.

They had all of their possessions stolen from their vehicle within just 5 minutes…

At the same beach, another European family enjoying a day by the ocean fell prey to a car break-in.

Shocking footage captured by Matty Lopez on Instagram and shared by journalist Arisley T. Pacheco, who documents robbery victims, revealed their car’s trunk vandalized, with shattered glass scattered across the ground.

The man recording the video questions the tourists, ‘So what happened – you went to the beach for five minutes?’ Their response is disheartening: ‘They took everything we had – passports, cameras, phones, iPads, laptops, luggage – everything.’

Whether we like it or not, this is our country now.

Once upon a time, Beverly Hills was world famous for the luxury retailers that lined Wilshire Boulevard.

But now many of those iconic retailers have shut down permanently due to rising crime…

A new video documenting the growing number of high-profile stores in Beverly Hills that have closed recently, places renewed emphasis on the crisis facing the retail sector in most major cities.

The video, posted by an account called cody90210, shows some 11 popular Beverly Hills retail stops now entirely shuttered, including the iconic former Barneys location, Brooks Brothers, All Saints, and the high-end women’s fashion boutique Escada. Both Escada and Barneys filed for bankruptcy in recent years.

The closed shops, which also include convenience retailers like Rite Aid and Chipotle, and even popular workout class option SoulCycle, have shuttered their doors on Wilshire Boulevard, leaving the area bereft of its former appeal. Their sad decline marks a departure from the area’s lengthy heyday, which even saw band Weezer pen a song with the lyrics ‘Beverly Hills, that’s where I want to be.’

I don’t know why anyone would want to live in southern California at this point.

Earlier today, I came across a story about a street vendor in south Los Angeles that was viciously assaulted by a group of thugs in broad daylight “in front of his 8-year-old special needs daughter”…

A group of masked males brutally attacked a street vendor in front of his 8-year-old special needs daughter and stole all his money in south Los Angeles over the weekend, KTLA-TV reported.

These criminals have no respect for anyone or anything.

They just want to take what you have.

Of course this isn’t just a west coast phenomenon. In Washington D.C., carjackings are up more than 100 percent so far this year…

Washington D.C. has witnessed a staggering 670 reported carjackings in 2023 so far, representing 100 percent+ increase in the offense across the U.S. Capitol compared to the same period last year. The city’s Democrat-dominated city council, however, remains on vacation until September 15 and has shown no signs of trying to return early to solve the matter. In 2018, there were 140 carjackings, jumping to 360 by 2020, with total of 485 in 2022. The city has also seen a 113 percent increase in carjackings involving a firearm compared to 2022. A total of 513 incidents involved a gun, representing 77 percent of all D.C. carjackings. Only 157 incidents did not involve a firearm.

Things are even worse in Baltimore.

One young mother in the city that recently spoke to FOX45 News is deeply frustrated because she can’t seem to find a way to keep her 14-year-old daughter from stealing cars…

As another school year begins, a Baltimore mom isn’t scheduling after-school activities for her 14-year-old daughter; instead, she’s scheduling court appearances and trying to figure out what – if anything – will get her daughter to stop stealing cars and follow the rules of her home detention.

Rae spoke with FOX45 News about her 14-year-old daughter on the condition of not using her last name or showing her face on camera. In return, Rae spoke candidly about her daughter’s behavior, experience with police, and the Department of Juvenile Services.

Apparently this 14-year-old girl is really good at stealing vehicles, and authorities refuse to keep her locked up because she is not an adult.

Hopefully she will find a way to turn her life around.

But the reality of the matter is that there are millions of others just like her.

Our cities are being overwhelmed by hordes of young people that are totally out of control, and meanwhile police departments are shrinking.

In fact, some small towns have eliminated their police departments entirely because it has become so difficult to find people that are willing to serve in this environment…

America is in the midst of a police officer shortage that many in law enforcement blame on the two-fold morale hit of 2020 — the coronavirus pandemic and criticism of police that boiled over with the murder of George Floyd by a police officer. From Minnesota to Maine, Ohio to Texas, small towns unable to fill jobs are eliminating their police departments and turning over police work to their county sheriff, a neighboring town or state police.

What is going to happen if the number of police continues to shrink but the number of criminals continues to rise?

I think that we all know the answer to that question.

Great chaos is coming to this country, and it isn’t going to be pretty.

Our society has been trending the wrong way for a long time, and now we have reached a major tipping point.

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

Proof That Bidenomics Has Been A Catastrophic Failure

September 4, 2023September 4, 2023 by Michael

Joe Biden just can’t quit fibbing. On Labor Day, he traveled to Philadelphia where he delivered a speech touting the success of “Bidenomics”. Who does he think he is fooling? The American people aren’t buying that nonsense. They know that prices are out of control at the grocery store. They know that the cost of living has been rising much faster than their paychecks have been. They know that high interest rates have made it much harder to buy a home. And they can see that lots of people are starting to lose their jobs. The truth is that Joe Biden’s time in the White House has been an economic nightmare, and it appears that conditions are likely to get even worse before he is scheduled to leave.

According to a Wall Street Journal poll that was just released, 59 percent of U.S. voters do not approve of how Biden is handling the economy, and voters are particularly concerned about where inflation is headed…

The Wall Street Journal poll, conducted from Aug. 24 to Aug. 30, found that 59% of voters disapprove of Biden’s handling of the economy. Nearly 3 in 4 voters say that inflation “is headed in the wrong direction,” the outlet reported.

Voters overwhelmingly think Biden, who is 80 years old, is too old to run for reelection and only 39% of voters had a favorable view of the president.

I wrote about rapidly rising food prices yesterday, and if you have been to the grocery store lately you know how painful they have become.

Earlier in the summer, Republicans in the U.S. Senate released some figures about inflation during the Biden administration that are quite alarming…

Senate Republican leadership released a report in July showing inflation has soared by 16.6% since Biden took office. Grocery prices have increased by 20%, the report said, citing Bureau of Labor Statistics data, while energy prices have increased 38%.

Of course those numbers only tell part of the story.

If inflation was still calculated the way that it was back in 1980, it would still be well into double digit territory.

The cost of living has been soaring, and our standard of living has been steadily going down.

As a result, over 60 percent of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck at this point, and debt levels are rising to unprecedented levels.

Because consumers have so little disposable income these days, retailers all over the nation are experiencing difficulty.

In fact, UBS is projecting that 50,000 stores could close in the United States by the end of 2027…

Analysts at investment bank UBS are forecasting that some 50,000 U.S. stores are likely to close by the end of 2027, because of expected cutbacks in consumer spending, tighter credit and the continued shift to ecommerce.

Store closings could accelerate to 70,000 to 90,000 if retail sales turn out to be weaker than expected, according to UBS.

Actually, I think that losing 50,000 stores is a wildly optimistic scenario.

Hopefully I am wrong about that.

The housing market has also been going haywire.

According to Fortune, the month of August “will become the worst month for housing affordability this century”…

On Monday, the average 30-year fixed mortgage rate reached 7.48%, marking the highest level since the year 2000. Even prior to this recent surge in mortgage rates, housing affordability, as monitored by the Atlanta Fed, had already deteriorated beyond the levels seen at the housing bubble’s peak in 2006. Once this latest mortgage rate surge is factored in, August 2023 will become the worst month for housing affordability this century.

Wow.

Thanks Joe Biden.

Home prices are going to have to come down, and in some areas they have already fallen quite a bit…

Homeowners are sitting on a negative equity timebomb after losing $108.4 billion on their property values this year, experts say.

The average borrower saw their home equity plummet by $5,400 in the first quarter of 2023 compared to last year – with households in Washington, California and Utah worst affected.

Do you remember the housing crash of 2008 and 2009?

Well, now the next housing crash is here, and it isn’t going to be fun.

For a while there, Joe Biden and his minions could at least boast about the employment market.

But now large companies all over America are laying off workers, and it is being reported that a staggering 1.223 million native-born Americans lost their jobs during the months of July and August…

Staggering figures have revealed that over 1.2 million US-born workers lost their jobs last month while the foreign-born workforce increased by nearly 700,000 – as migrants continue to flood across the border under the Biden administration.

Data from US Bureau of Labor Statistics show that between July and August, there was a staggering decrease of 1.223 million native-born people in the workforce – which is a low not beaten since the jobs crash when Covid hit in April 2020.

The numbers that I have shared with you are nothing to brag about.

But Joe Biden is going to keep trying to pull the wool over the eyes of the American people anyway.

Unfortunately for Biden, it has become quite clear that most Americans have lost faith in him. According to the same Wall Street Journal poll that I mentioned above, 73 percent of U.S. voters now believe that Biden “is too old to run for president”…

For Biden, one of his biggest challenges is age. The Wall Street Journal poll found that about 73% of voters think Biden is too old to run for president while only 47% think Trump is too old. Thirty-six percent of voters think that Biden is mentally up for the job while 46% of voters think Trump is mentally capable of being president.

We have never seen numbers like this for any other president.

It is obvious that Biden is in a very advanced state of decline, and this is happening during one of the most critical periods in our history.

Sadly, Biden fully intends to run again.

And the Democrats will get behind him, because at this point no other candidate is posing a serious threat to Biden.

So it appears that a rematch between Joe Biden and Donald Trump is coming in 2024, and that promises to be quite a chaotic affair.

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

“Mad Max” Conditions Are Coming: Desperation Is Rising As The Economy Rapidly Deteriorates And Food Costs Soar

September 3, 2023September 3, 2023 by Michael

How far would you go to feed your family? Hopefully that is a question that you will not have to answer any time soon, but right now we are seeing millions upon millions of people become more desperate as economic conditions rapidly deteriorate and food costs soar. At this point, most Americans are just barely scraping by from month to month, and in poorer countries on the other side of the world there are people that are literally starving to death. As I have detailed previously, the UN has reported that 2.4 billion people did not have enough food to eat last year, and 900 million of them were facing severe food insecurity. Sadly, those numbers will inevitably be even higher for 2023. A global rice crisis has erupted, and the collapse of the Black Sea grain deal has greatly restricted the flow of agricultural goods from that part of the globe. Food costs are spiking all over the planet, and that is really bad news for all of us.

For those of us that live in the United States, the good news is that nobody is starving at this stage.

But food prices have become extremely oppressive, and economic conditions are quickly moving in the wrong direction.

670,000 full-time jobs have been lost in just the past two months, and on Friday we witnessed the worst unadjusted payrolls report for the month of August since the Great Recession.

Yes, things really are that bad.

One recent survey discovered that 61 percent of Americans are currently living paycheck to paycheck, but I expect this number to go even higher in the months ahead…

Inflation, mortgage rates over 7% and credit card APR’s north of 20% have pushed all income brackets into living paycheck to paycheck, according to a new survey from Lending Club Bank.

“In July 2023, 61% of U.S. consumers live paycheck to paycheck, unchanged from June 2023, but 2 percentage points higher than July 2022. Generally, more consumers of all income brackets reported living paycheck to paycheck in July 2023 than last year,” Alia Dudum, a money expert at LendingClub told FOX Business.

Things are particularly dire for low income workers. That same survey discovered that a whopping 78 percent of those that earn less than $50,000 a year are living paycheck to paycheck at this point…

Lower-income workers have been the hardest hit by higher prices, particularly for food and other necessities, since those expenses account for a bigger share of the budget, studies show.

Now, 78% of consumers earning less than $50,000 a year and 65% of those earning between $50,000 and $100,000 were living paycheck to paycheck in July, both up from a year ago, LendingClub found. Of those earning $100,000 or more, only 44% reported living paycheck to paycheck.

As I discussed last week, U.S. households that are feeling financial strain are increasingly turning to debt to make ends meet, and this has pushed debt levels to unprecedented heights…

Total household debt climbed to a new high in the second quarter of 2023, reaching $17.06 trillion, with credit card debt exceeding $1 trillion, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. As interest rates stay high, costs continue to rise for expenses like housing and cars, and student loan payments resume, the amount of debt may rise, according to economists who spoke to the Daily Caller News Foundation.

“The amount of debt outstanding, and in particular the surpassing of the $1 trillion mark, is significant and worrisome,” Peter Earle, an economist at the American Institute for Economic Research, told the DCNF. “It owes to a combination of several factors. The initial response to the pandemic, which prominently included the Fed setting policy (interest) rates at essentially zero for several years, made the amount of credit and the price of taking on debt extraordinarily cheap.”

As economic conditions get worse, people are becoming more desperate.

This is helping to fuel a crime wave all over the nation, and retailers are being forced to implement extreme measures.

According to the Wahington Post, a Giant Food store in Washington D.C. is actually going to be taking all Tide, Colgate and Advil products off the shelves completely because theft has become such a problem…

In the coming weeks, a Giant Food market in D.C. will clear its beauty and health aisles of all national labels. No more Tide, Colgate or Advil, only store brands. Shoppers also will have to present their receipts to an employee before exiting the store.

It’s the regional supermarket chain’s most overt gambit against the rampant theft that’s plaguing retailers of all sizes. It’s also a potential last-ditch effort to avoid shutting down the unprofitable store on Alabama Avenue — the only major grocer east of the Anacostia River in Ward 8.

An executive for the chain told the Washington Post that the company has “no other choice” and she noted that other stores in the area have done similar things…

“We have no other choice,” Diane Hicks, senior vice president of operations said Thursday during a walk-through with officials from the D.C. mayor’s office, the Metropolitan police and fire departments, and Chamber of Commerce. She added that other nearby stores have locked up all their product on those aisles or removed them altogether. “I’ve been leaving it out for our customers and unfortunately it just forces all the crime to come to us.”

This is where our entire society is heading.

It is just a matter of time before we see armed guards stationed in grocery stores and on food trucks all over America.

Desperate people do desperate things, and right now we are seeing things happen that are absolutely nuts.

Just a few days ago, an extremely shocking incident that happened in broad daylight at a Home Depot store in California made headlines all over the nation…

Brazen thieves were caught on camera casually walking out with $9,000 worth of goods from separate California stores as lawlessness in the state governed by Gavin Newsom continues.

A group of masked thieves stormed into a Home Depot store in Signal Hill on August 27 and stole $5,000 worth of power tools in full view of shocked staff and customers.

The seven men loaded two shopping carts with expensive goods and carried as much as possible in their arms before walking out.

These sorts of robberies have become so common that I couldn’t possibly cover them all.

We really are starting to become a “Mad Max” society.

Of course the truth is that the entire world is moving in that direction. Global supplies of food are getting tighter and tighter, and the recent spike in rice prices has created a tremendous amount of concern…

Countries worldwide are scrambling to secure rice after a partial ban on exports by India cut global supplies by roughly a fifth. Global food security is already under threat since Russia halted an agreement allowing Ukraine to export wheat and the El Nino weather phenomenon hampers rice production.

Now, rice prices are soaring, and it’s putting the most vulnerable people in some of the poorest nations at risk. Vietnam’s rice export prices, for instance, have reached a 15-year high. Even before India’s restrictions, countries already were frantically buying rice in anticipation of scarcity later when the El Nino hit, creating a supply crunch and spiking prices.

Civil unrest has already started to erupt in various parts of Africa, but if current trends continue things will get a whole lot worse around the globe in 2024.

Are you prepared for what is ahead?

Right now, a lot of people are apparently asking that question. In fact, according to Zero Hedge the number of Americans searching for the term “live off grid” on the Internet has hit the highest level in years…

What’s piqued our interest is the sudden panic by some Americans searching ‘live off grid’ on the internet, hitting the highest level in five years. The driving force behind finding a rural piece of land for dirt cheap, buying or building a tiny home, installing solar panels, and sourcing your own food and water might have to do with the worst inflation storm in a generation while Democrat cities implode under the weight of soaring violent crime.

I have been relentlessly warning my readers that “Mad Max” conditions are coming for years.

Anyone that took an honest look at the long-term trends should have been able to see that.

Global leaders have been making absolutely disastrous decisions for a very long time, and now we are all going to reap the consequences.

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

Direct Government Censorship Of The Internet Is Here

August 31, 2023August 31, 2023 by Michael

Censorship of the Internet has been getting worse for years, but we just crossed a threshold which is going to take things to a whole new level. On August 25th, a new law known as the “Digital Services Act” went into effect in the European Union. Under this new law, European bureaucrats will be able to order big tech companies to censor any content that is considered to be “illegal”, “disinformation” or “hate speech”. That includes content that is posted by users outside of the European Union, because someone that lives in the European Union might see it. I wrote about this a few days ago, but I don’t think that people are really understanding the implications of this new law. In the past, there have been times when governments have requested that big tech companies take down certain material, but now this new law will give government officials the power to force big tech companies to take down any content that they do not like. Any big tech companies that choose not to comply will be hit with extremely harsh penalties.

Of course mainstream news outlets such as the Washington Post are attempting to put a positive spin on this new law. We are being told that it will “safeguard” us from “illegal content” and “disinformation”…

New rules meant to safeguard people from illegal content, targeted ads, unwanted algorithmic feeds and disinformation online are finally in force, thanks to new regulation in the European Union that took effect this month.

Doesn’t that sound wonderful?

When this new law was first approved, NPR admitted that it will enable European governments to “take down a wide range of content”…

Under the EU law, governments would be able to ask companies take down a wide range of content that would be deemed illegal, including material that promotes terrorism, child sexual abuse, hate speech and commercial scams.

In addition to “illegal content” and “hate speech”, the Digital Services Act also applies to “hoaxes” and any material that is considered to be “disinformation”. The following comes from the official website of the European Commission…

At the same time, the DSA regulates very large online platforms’ and very large online search engines responsibilities when it comes to systemic issues such as disinformation, hoaxes and manipulation during pandemics, harms to vulnerable groups and other emerging societal harms.

These new content rules are so vague that they could apply to just about anything.

And that is precisely what they want.

From this point forward, if you post something that they do not like, they will have the power to have it taken down.

Even if you don’t live in the European Union, they can have your content taken down, because someone in the European Union might see it.

So who will be doing the censoring?

Well, it is being reported that “hundreds of unelected EU bureaucrats will decide what constitutes disinformation and instruct Big Tech firms to censor it”…

Under this Orwellian regime, a team of hundreds of unelected EU bureaucrats will decide what constitutes disinformation and instruct Big Tech firms to censor it. The firms themselves, faced with reputational risk and financial penalties, will have little choice other than to comply. This can be done in all manner of ways: simply by human moderators removing content, by shadow-banning problematic creators to reduce their reach, by demonetising certain content, and by tweaking algorithms to favour or disfavour certain topics. And though, legally speaking, the DSA only applies in the EU, once installed inside Big Tech firms, this vast content-regulation apparatus will surely affect users in the rest of the world, too.

In addition, the official website of the European Commission is telling us that big tech companies must “react with priority” to any content that has been reported by “trusted flaggers”…

A priority channel will be created for trusted flaggers – entities which have demonstrated particular expertise and competence – to report illegal content to which platforms will have to react with priority.

This means that far left organizations that have been set up to police content online will now be given extraordinary power to restrict speech on the Internet.

Needless to say, the Internet is never going to be the same after this.

Initially, this new law will apply to 19 very large online platforms…

The online platforms affected are Alibaba AliExpress, Amazon Store, Apple AppStore, Booking.com, Facebook, Google Play, Google Maps, Google Shopping, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Snapchat, TikTok, X (listed as Twitter), Wikipedia, YouTube, the European clothing retailer Zalando, Bing and Google Search.

If any of those large online platforms choose not to comply with the new law, the penalties could be extremely severe…

A firm that does not comply with the law could face a complete ban in Europe or fines running up to 6% of its global revenue.

Last month, X/Twitter said it was on track to generate $3bn (£2.4bn) in revenue. A fine of 6% would be the equivalent of £144m.

Once we get to February 24th, 2024, the Digital Services Act will also apply to a vast multitude of smaller platforms.

At that point, it will be very difficult to escape the reach of this new law.

And just to make sure that they can keep a very close eye on things, the EU just established a brand new office in San Francisco on June 22nd…

European Commissioner for Internal Market Thierry Breton cut the ribbon to commemorate the official launch of the European Union’s San Francisco office on Thursday, June 22, alongside Lieutenant Governor of California Eleni Kounalakis, California State Senator Scott Wiener, and Chair of the European Parliament’s Committee on Legal Affairs Adrian Vazquez.

“I am very glad to be here today in Silicon Valley, a global centre for digital technology and innovation, to officially inaugurate the new European Union office in San Francisco,” Commissioner Breton said in his keynote address to an audience of business and technology sector leaders. “As like-minded partners who strive for reciprocity and common principles, all while respecting our respective democratic processes, our transatlantic ties are more relevant than ever in the area of technology.”

For many years, the Internet was one of the last bastions for free speech.

But now everything has changed.

From this point forward, far left European bureaucrats will get to determine what is acceptable and what is not acceptable on our large online platforms.

Direct government censorship of the Internet is here, and that is going to make it much more difficult to share the truth with a world that desperately needs it.

These are such dark times, and they are getting darker with each passing day.

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

Speculation Grows That Warren Buffett Is “Bracing For A Recession” As Consumer Confidence Plummets And Retailers Fall On Hard Times

August 30, 2023August 30, 2023 by Michael

The Biden administration is trying really hard to convince us that the U.S. economy is doing just fine, but the numbers just keep getting worse and worse. Consumer confidence is plummeting, large corporations are conducting mass layoffs all over the country, and major retailers are really struggling right now. Meanwhile, some of the smartest guys in the financial world are making moves that would only make sense if the economy was headed for big trouble. Earlier this month, I wrote about how Michael Burry has bet 1.6 billion dollars that the stock market is going to crash. He made a ton of money in 2008 by being on the correct side of the financial crisis, and he plans to make even more money this time around. This week, speculation has been growing that Warren Buffett also believes that a major downturn is coming. In fact, Business Insider is warning that Warren Buffett “may be bracing for a recession” because he has been selling off stocks at a staggering pace…

Berkshire sold a net $8 billion of stocks and slowed its pace of buybacks last quarter, sparking a 13% rise in its money pile to a near-record $147 billion.

The sprawling conglomerate has now disposed of a net $33 billion of stocks over the past three quarters, fueling a $38 billion increase in its stash of cash, cash equivalents, and Treasury bills during that time.

Buffett’s second-quarter moves “are consistent with the anticipation of a recession and the fact that stocks are currently pricey,” Hanke told Insider.

Burry and Buffett are both extremely sharp, and they clearly understand what the economic numbers are telling them.

At this moment, most U.S. consumers are struggling to make ends meet from month to month and millions of them are absolutely drowning in debt.

And the latest consumer confidence figures are downright dismal…

Consumer confidence cratered in August, falling from a downwardly revised 114.0 last month to 106.1. The projection was for a slight increase to 116.

Americans don’t think the economy is doing well currently. The Present Situation Index—based on consumers’ assessment of current business and labor market conditions—fell to 144.8 from 153.0.

And they don’t think the economy is going to do well in the near future. The Expectations Index— based on consumers’ short-term outlook for income, business, and labor market conditions—declined to 80.2 in August. That reversed July’s sharp uptick to 88.0.

An Expectations Index below 80 generally signals an impending recession.

So that means that we are almost to the level that “signals an impending recession”.

Of course other numbers suggest that a major downturn has already arrived. When the economy is booming, FedEx and UPS have to schedule more flights because they have so many packages to handle. But at this point the number of package flights is falling precipitously…

The number of package flights operated by FedEx Express and UPS significantly declined month over month in July, underscoring how far the overall air cargo market has sunk since the spring of 2022 and the effect of efficiency initiatives the companies have undertaken in response to lower express volumes.

FedEx (NYSE: FDX) flew 9% fewer domestic flights last month than in June following small sequential gains the prior two months, with year-over-year flight activity down 14%, according to an analysis by investment bank Morgan Stanley. The year-over-year decline in UPS’ flight activity accelerated to 13% from 10% in June. UPS (NYSE: UPS) reduced July flights by 14% from June. Flight activity in May and June, by comparison, was relatively stable.

At the same time, big companies all over America continue to lay off more workers.

Right now, we are seeing a lot of large financial institutions let people go as turmoil in the banking industry continues to spread…

BMO Financial Group, Wells Fargo, and USAA have reported hundreds of layoffs to state officials in recent weeks as the U.S. banking industry continues to downsize.

The job cuts come as banking executives express caution about the industry’s growth prospects in the second half of the year, and as some banks divest certain parts of their businesses.

Sadly, this is just the tip of the iceberg.

There will be many more layoffs in the months ahead.

Needless to say, the second half of 2023 will not be a particularly good time for retailers.

In fact, Best Buy is already projecting that sales will fall this year more than originally anticipated…

U.S. shoppers have continued to pull back on tech spending, according to the latest earnings report from Best Buy.

The retailer on Tuesday lowered the high end of its full-year revenue outlook amid declining sales, and now expects to make between $43.8 billion and $44.5 billion in revenue during fiscal year 2024, down from its prior guidance of up to $45.2 billion. Comparable sales from stores, websites and call centers open at least 14 months are expected to dip 4.5% to 6% this year, compared to the previous estimate of 3% to 6%.

And we have just learned that Rite Aid is suddenly on the verge of filing for bankruptcy…

Philadelphia-based Rite Aid’s stock price dipped more than 50% Friday after the reports on the pending bankruptcy filing were published by The Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg, citing people familiar with the matter.The Chapter 11 filing would allow the company to restructure its more than $3 billion debt load and help it address lawsuits alleging the company filled hundreds of thousands of opioid prescriptions unlawfully.

Every day, we hear of even more retailers that have gotten into trouble.

Stores are being shut down all over the nation at a frightening rate, and this is particularly true in many of our core urban areas.

For example, the following is from an article about downtown San Francisco that CNN just posted…

In many ways, San Francisco’s downtown is in dire straits. The city’s Union Square neighborhood — once bustling with shoppers, diners, and tourists — has suffered from declining foot traffic and shuttered storefronts.

Stores in the area now have papered-over windows and “Retail for Lease” signs, according to Google Street View, which was last updated in June.

But downtown San Francisco still seems relatively prosperous compared to downtown Oakland.

One man recently took a camera down there, and he discovered that so many stores have closed that it literally looks like a ghost town right now…

This is what communities all over America are going to look like during the very harsh economic environment that is ahead of us.

We have been warned for a long time that this crisis was coming, and now it is here.

Our leaders just kept making one self-destructive decision after another, and now we are in the early chapters of an economic nightmare.

Michael Burry and Warren Buffett are positioning themselves for what is coming.

What about you?

I hope that you are ready for the approaching storm, because it is really going to pack quite a punch.

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

8 Signs That We Are Right On The Verge Of A Major Credit Card Debt Crisis

August 29, 2023August 29, 2023 by Michael

We aren’t quite there yet, but an enormous credit card debt crisis is definitely brewing. Americans are becoming increasingly dependent on their credit cards to make ends meet from month to month, the percentage of us that are carrying balances from month to month is growing, and the average rate of interest on such balances has risen above 20 percent. If you can possibly avoid it, do not carry credit card balances from month to month, because that will strangle you financially. Unfortunately, our young people are never taught this in school, and so many of them get into deep financial trouble when they become adults. And once you get into deep financial trouble, it can take many years to get out of it.

In all my years, I have never seen numbers like we are witnessing right now. The following are 8 signs that we are right on the verge of a major credit card debt crisis…

#1 The total amount of credit card debt in the United States has surpassed the one trillion dollar mark and is now at the highest level ever recorded…

The New York Federal Reserve reported earlier in August that total credit card debt surged to $1.03 trillion during the three-month period from April to June, an increase of $45 billion – or 4.6% – from the previous quarter. It marks the highest level on record in Fed data dating back to 2003.

#2 The average rate of interest on credit card balances has now risen to a new all-time record high of 20.63 percent…

The dual increase in credit card usage and delinquency rates is particularly concerning because interest rates are astronomically high right now. The average credit card annual percentage rate, or APR, hit a new record of 20.63% last week, according to a Bankrate database that goes back to 1985.

#3 A whopping 47 percent of all U.S. cardholders are now carrying balances from month to month…

Many cardholders from all age and income groups are carrying over credit card balances, with 47 percent saying they do so — up from 39 percent in December 2021 — the survey (carried out in July) finds. Agewise, 53 percent of Gen Xers carryover card balances from month to month. Next were Gen Z consumers (52 percent) followed by millennials, (49 percent) and baby boomers (41 percent).

#4 The average credit card debt level in the United States just continues to grow…

The national average credit card debt grew to $7,227, according to the survey.

However, U.S. consumers in some states held more debt than others. Connecticut’s residents had the highest average debt level of $9,408, surpassing the national average by 30%, according to the survey. Right behind it were credit card holders in New York, registering the second-highest average debt of $9,165.

#5 Most Americans are not running up credit card debt because they are making frivolous purchases. According to one industry insider, most Americans are doing it “because they are under financial strain”…

Bankrate.com analyst Greg McBride said that “people aren’t financing purchases at 20% because everything is going swimmingly. They’re doing so because they are under financial strain.

#6 The number of credit card delinquencies in the U.S. has surged dramatically over the past two years…

The rising number of delinquent accounts also indicates people are having a hard time keeping up with credit card payments. The number of accounts past due by one cycle has increased 42.6% over the last two years. Delinquencies have crept up to the highest level since 2017.

#7 One recent survey discovered that many Americans that actually use personal loans to consolidate credit card debt end up quickly running up new credit card balances close to their previous levels…

A survey conducted by TransUnion between April 2021 and September 2022 found that borrowers who used a personal loan to consolidate their credit card debt saw their balances decrease by 57% on average, but for many, those balances returned close to their previous levels 18 months later.

#8 At a time when economic conditions are slowing down all over the nation, Americans are becoming increasingly dependent on their credit cards…

In fact, two in five Americans with credit cards said they were more dependent on their credit cards than ever before, the survey found. And 35% said they won’t be able to pay off their credit card debt before the end of the year. In addition, another 35% of respondents said they’d likely max out at least one credit card by the end of 2023.

“This increased reliance on credit cards is likely to lead many even deeper into debt – which is especially troublesome with interest rates well into the double digits,” Quicken said in its report.

Unfortunately, a lot more Americans are likely to get into credit card trouble in the months ahead, because the labor market is getting significantly tighter.

In fact, we just got some new numbers that have created quite a bit of alarm…

With consensus expecting only a modest drop in the July job openings from 9.582 million to 9.5 million, what the BLS reported instead was a doozy: in July there were just 8.827 million job openings, the first sub-9 million print since March 2021. It was also the 3rd biggest miss on record!

Worse, had the BLS not drastically slashed the May number from 9.582MM to a laughable 9.165MM, the drop would have been almost 800K job openings. And yes, today’s downward revision…

… continues the recent trend of every single data point in the Biden administration being revised sharply lower in subsequent month(s), in a coordinated propaganda attempt to make the economy look stronger, then quietly revise it away when everyone forgets.

The economy is clearly headed for a very rough period, and the long-term outlook is even worse.

So now is not the time to pile on more debt.

Instead, now is a time to batten down the hatches.

I would very much encourage you to get “lean and mean” financially, because those that are carrying high levels of debt are likely to experience a lot of pain during the stressful years ahead.

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

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