Money

The Federal Reserve is stuck between a rock and a hard place.  If the Fed pushes rates higher, interest payments on our 34 trillion dollar national debt could spin wildly out of control and bank balance sheets will be in even worse condition than they are now.  First Republic just bit the dust, and literally thousands of other small and mid-size banks and in serious jeopardy.  So it would be suicidal to hike rates at this point.  But if the Fed were to reduce rates, that would be like injecting jet fuel into a raging fire.  Our ongoing inflation crisis is absolutely crushing working families, and the rising cost of living has risen to the top of the list of things that U.S. voters are concerned about.  The Fed seems very hesitant to cut rates, because that would make inflation even worse.  So at this point the Fed is essentially caught in a “deer in the headlights” moment because it doesn’t know which way to go.

But staying on the path that we are currently on is only going to end in disaster.

Mark Spitznagel, the chief investment officer of Universa Investments, recently warned that he believes that the “worst market crash since 1929” is ahead of us…

One of Wall Street’s most bearish skeptics told Business Insider last month that he thinks the “worst market crash since 1929” is coming.

For years, our leaders have been “kicking the can down the road”, but according to Spitznagel all of that intervention has set the stage for an absolutely epic collapse…

In an interview with New York Magazine’s Intelligencer last year, Spitznagel likened the Fed’s “constant monetary intervention” to forest fire suppression.

He went on to say “when you suppress it enough, it gets to a point where you can no longer afford to have any fires burn because they would be too big and too intense.”

That’s where the U.S. economy is at, according to the hedge fund manager.

If Spitznagel’s dire market predictions come true, you really don’t want to have all of your eggs in one basket — because that basket could easily go up in flames.

In the months ahead, we will want to keep a very close eye on our banks.

Our banks are the beating heart of our economic system, because without the banks we would not have a functioning economy.

The banks are where we get mortgages to buy homes, auto loans to buy vehicles, and credit cards to go on shopping sprees.

Without the credit they provide, we would be in a world of hurt.

Unfortunately, our banks are in very serious trouble right now.

Higher interest rates have blown a hole that is hundreds of billions of dollars wide in their balance sheets.

And they are sitting on mountains of commercial real estate loans that are going bad because the value of commercial real estate has collapsed all over the nation.

One consulting firm that examined data from approximately 4,000 U.S. banks is warning that hundreds more banks could potentially fail during this crisis…

According to recent reports, hundreds of banks face the potential of failing just like Republic First Bancorp.

Consulting firm Klaros Group analyzed roughly 4,000 U.S. banks and found that the banks face a threat of losses due to “secular changes in social patterns accelerated by the COVID pandemic (such as work-from-home, which has materially impacted demand for office space) and to the impacts of higher interest rates and related inflation.”

“You could see some banks either fail or at least, you know, dip below their minimum capital requirements,” Christopher Wolfe, managing director and head of North American banks at Fitch Ratings told CNBC in an interview.

Meanwhile, we continue to get even more signs that the overall economy is really slowing down.

For example, we just learned that Rue21 is going to be shutting down all 543 of their stores…

Rue21 – the teen fashion chain that is a fixture in malls across America – is to shut all 543 US stores.

Customers will be able to pick up deals while the company clears its stock over the next four to six weeks – but then the 40-year-old chain will be gone forever. At its peak, it had 1,200 shops.

It is expected clearance items will start at 20 to 50 percent off then rise up to as much as 90 percent to clear stock that doesn’t initially sell.

All over America, stores are closing, businesses are fleeing our core urban areas, and once bustling office buildings are standing empty.

At this stage, everyone should be able to see where all of this is heading.

The Chinese certainly understand the direction that things are moving.  The following comes from an article entitled “China Is Buying Gold Like There’s No Tomorrow”…

“China is unquestionably driving the price of gold,” said Ross Norman, chief executive of MetalsDaily.com, a precious-metals information platform based in London. “The flow of gold to China has gone from solid to an absolute torrent.”

Gold consumption in the country rose 6 percent in the first quarter from a year earlier, according to the China Gold Association. It came on the heels of a 9 percent increase last year.

Chinese consumers are voraciously buying gold because their own economy is crumbling and they can see what is happening to the global economy as a whole.

At the same time, China’s central bank is gobbling up gold at an unprecedented rate…

Another major buyer of gold in China is the country’s central bank. In March, the People’s Bank of China added to its gold reserves for a 17th straight month. Last year, the bank bought more gold than any other central bank in the world, adding more to its reserves than it had in nearly 50 years.

Beijing is buying up gold to diversify its reserve funds and reduce its dependence on the U.S. dollar, long considered the most important currency to hold in reserve. China has been reducing its U.S. Treasury holdings for more than a decade.

Traditionally, buying gold and other precious metals has been a way to preserve your assets if you think that a major crisis is coming.

And the truth is that a major crisis has already begun.

I have been warning my readers that 2024 would be a very important year, and that has definitely turned out to be the case.

Of course all of this is very bad news for Joe Biden.

He had been hoping that an improving economy would help his chances in November, but instead there has been a dramatic shift in the wrong direction just as we enter the most critical months of campaign season.

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

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.  You can connect with Michael on YouTube, Facebook and Twitter, and sharing his articles on your own social media accounts 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, we strongly urge you to invite Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior today.

People keep acting as if we are living in “normal” times, but the truth is that these are not “normal” times at all.  We are in the midst of a “perfect storm”, but most people in the general population don’t seem to realize this.  While the mainstream media is endlessly focused on political drama, our world is being deeply troubled by war, economic problems, food shortages, nightmarish pestilences and terrifying natural disasters.  But as bad as things are at this moment, I am entirely convinced that they are about to get a whole lot worse.

I would like to start by talking about war.  The IDF is preparing to conduct an operation in Rafah, and that could cause the entire Middle East to erupt in flames.  Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is pledging that his forces will eventually move in no matter how negotiations for a temporary ceasefire with Hamas go.  Meanwhile, we just learned that Israel has just conducted airstrikes on the outskirts of Damascus…

Israeli aircraft have reportedly attacked a location on the outskirts of the Syrian capital of Damascus late Thursday (local), a security source told Reuters.

While there has been no immediate confirmation via Syrian state media, widely circulating images have emerged on social media showing plumes of smoke rising high over buildings which were struck.

It is just a matter of time before all-out war erupts in the region.

Speaking of all-out war, French President Emmanuel Macron is warning that French troops could be sent to Ukraine if Russian forces break through the Ukrainian front lines…

Emmanuel Macron has said he would be prepared to send troops to Ukraine if Vladimir Putin’s forces break through the front lines – further raising the risk of NATO forces clashing with Russia’s armies.

In an interview published today, the French president said the issue of sending troops would ‘legitimately’ arise if Kyiv and president Volodymyr Zelensky made such a request.

The Economist said Macron gave the interview after delivering a keynote speech last week where he declared that Europe is ‘mortal’ and could ‘die’ partly due to the threat posed by Russian aggression after its February 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

Those that have been following the war closely know that the Russians are already breaking through the front lines in several areas along the eastern front.

So will Macron make good on his threat?

If so, that will put us literally one step away from nuclear conflict.

All throughout history, large scale wars have been accompanied by famine.

For now, we still have plenty of food to eat in the western world, but it is a far different story in the poorest areas of the planet.

For example, the famine in Sudan has become so severe that some people are literally eating dirt…

There is so little food in some areas of Sudan that people are taking extreme measures to survive.

In the Al Lait refugee camp, they are eating dirt.

I was stunned when I read that.

If you were hungry enough, would you fill your stomach with dirt?

Apparently, some desperately hungry people are rolling dirt into a ball and swallowing it with water…

Akok, 41, reached Al Lait in December, but has no work and can’t feed the family. At times, they go two or three days without eating. When that happens, Akok said, he watches helplessly as his wife and children dig holes in the ground with a stick, slide their hands in and grab some soil. Then they roll the soil into a ball, put it in their mouths and swallow it with water.

“I keep telling them not to do it, but it’s hunger,” he said. “There is nothing I can do.”

In my latest book I have an entire chapter about the emerging global famine.  What we are witnessing now is just the tip of the iceberg compared to what is eventually coming.

I have also been warning that frightening pestilences will break out all over the globe, and right now we are witnessing an unprecedented outbreak of dengue fever in South America.

At this point, more than four million cases of dengue fever have been registered in Brazil alone so far this year…

Brazil surpassed 4 million cases of dengue fever registered this year, according to an update from the Ministry of Health’s Arbovirus Monitoring Panel this Monday. In total, 4,127,571 probable cases of the disease were reported across the country in the first four months of 2024.

As for dengue deaths, 1,937 have been confirmed and 2,345 are under investigation. The incidence rate of the disease in the country is 2,032.7 cases for each group of 100,000 population.

And Peru has just declared a nationwide health emergency because cases of dengue fever are rising so rapidly in that nation…

The Peruvian government’s cabinet approved the motion to declare a health emergency on Monday, Vasquez told journalists, hours after he said a dengue outbreak was “imminent.”

“There are 20 regions (out of 25) that will be declared in a health emergency due to dengue,” Vasquez said in an earlier interview on local radio station RPP.

Here in North America, H5N1 has been killing cows, cats, chickens and turkeys.

Now authorities are desperately hoping that it does not make the jump to humans.  For much more on this, please see my recent article entitled “The Strain Of The Bird Flu That Is Killing Cats In Texas Is Causing ‘Brain Hemorrhaging’ And ‘Blindness'”.

Lastly, I would like to talk about the unusual natural disasters that we have been experiencing lately.

In 2024, southern California has been getting shaken on a regular basis.  Yesterday, it was hit by a magnitude 4.1 earthquake…

An earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 4.1 has struck near Corona in Riverside County, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

The USGS says the quake struck at 1:49 p.m. just 5.3 miles from Corona. It was originally reported as a 4.5 magnitude but was ultimately reduced to a 4.1.

Overall, there have been 748 earthquakes in California and Nevada within the past seven days.

It is just a matter of time before “the Big One” strikes, but at this stage most of those living in the region have stopped listening to such warnings.

The east coast has also been experiencing unusual seismic activity.

On the first day of this month, New Jersey was shaken by a magnitude 2.6 earthquake…

A magnitude 2.6 aftershock has rattled New Jersey on the first day of May after a dramatic earthquake shook parts of the east coast in early April.

The Garden State has been rocked by more than 150 aftershocks since the initial 4.8 magnitude earthquake which centered near Lebanon on the morning of April 5.

More than 42 million people from New York to Connecticut and Philadelphia felt the first quake, and New Jersey residents have been plagued by tremors ever since.

Normally, the east coast if very, very quiet.

So what we are seeing right now is definitely quite unusual.

The middle of the nation has not been left out either.

In recent days we have seen tornado after tornado rock the center of the country.

For example, one area of Nebraska was just hit by a tornado that had wind speeds of up to 165 miles per hour…

Nebraska brothers tell a terrifying tale of feeling a tornado pull their home apart, sucking them out and tossing them with debris.

“Ok, I’m cool to leave for work,” Roger Slatten thought to himself Saturday afternoon after Elkhorn, Nebraska’s tornado sirens went silent. But they sounded again. A strong EF-3 tornado was bearing down on the Omaha suburb with 165 mph winds.

His friend called him in the car and said, “Get back home, It’s going crazy.” Roger called his brother Royce and told him to rush home. They planned to get the two dogs and all shelter in the basement.

When will people finally start waking up?

What we are experiencing is not even close to normal.

It seems like almost every new day brings us yet another new crisis or disaster to deal with, and I have a feeling that the pace of events is only going to escalate as this year continues to roll along.

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

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.  You can connect with Michael on YouTube, Facebook and Twitter, and sharing his articles on your own social media accounts 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, we strongly urge you to invite Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior today.

Can you feel it too?  Over the past few weeks, I have heard from so many readers that are deeply troubled about economic conditions where they live.  In some cases, sales are way down.  In other cases, it seems almost impossible to find a decent job.  It is almost as if a tremendous chill descended upon the U.S. economy as the second quarter of 2024 began.  Yes, economic conditions have certainly not been good for a few years, but it appears that an absolutely enormous economic shift of historic proportions is now taking place right in front of our eyes.  Other than the early stages of the pandemic, we haven’t seen anything like this since 2008 and 2009.

Let me give you an example that will illustrate what I am talking about.  A reader that lives near Seattle recently wrote me about the horrible downturn that she is witnessing in the tech industry, and she said that I could share this information with all of you…

I live in the tech corridor outside of Seattle and practically no one can find a job in tech. Apparently the costs of AI processors and servers are so expensive that large tech companies are laying off workers to accommodate for the increased infrastructure costs. I would estimate that 50 percent of the people I know in tech are unemployed including myself and my spouse. In addition they are laying off both FTEs and contractors and not backfilling the positions. The problem is exacerbated if you’re over 40 because they don’t want to compensate for experience. In fact experience seems to be working against people. Not to mention AI taking over roles like technical writing and marketing communications. It’s getting really bad out there and the large companies play along with the media. I’ve met with several ex colleagues who have had their entire teams laid off and former FTEs who have had to take major pay cuts as contractors. I’ve also heard of more rounds of layoffs coming up. I went over to Microsoft the other morning to have coffee with an ex colleague and it’s a ghost town. No one in conference rooms or offices. Maybe people are working from home but it sure felt very different.

That email resonated with me so strongly, because she is right.

Vast hordes of tech workers have already been laid off, and more will be hitting the bricks soon.

But the tech industry is supposed to be one of our economic bright spots.

If things are this bad for the tech industry, what does this say about the economy as a whole?

Most of the jobs that are still available at this point pay very little.  Jobs that actually pay enough to support a middle class lifestyle have been disappearing, and millions of white collar workers find themselves on the outside looking in.  The following comes from a Business Insider article entitled “Welcome to the white-collar recession”…

Over the past year or so, pretty much everyone who’s looked for a job has told me the same thing: The job market is brutal right now. They’ve applied to dozens if not hundreds of openings, only to get one or two callbacks. No one’s hiring, they tell me. I’ve never seen it this bad.

Yes.

I have heard the same things over and over again too.

And it is getting worse with each passing day.

On Wednesday, we learned about even more layoffs at Google…

Google fired approximately 200 employees and relocated some of the jobs overseas – the latest sign of a long-running effort by the Big Tech firm to cut costs and restructure itself.

The job cuts — announced internally on the eve of Google’s blowout first-quarter earnings report — targeted members of Google’s “core” team, which works on the “technical foundation behind the company’s flagship products” as well as the online safety of users and its global IT infrastructure, according to its website.

At least 50 of the roles were based at Google’s headquarters in Sunnyvale, Calif. Google is expected to hire replacement workers for the roles in Mexico and India, CNBC reported, citing a review of internal documents.

Large companies all over America are looking to “trim the fat”, and that often means giving the axe to expensive older workers.

There is very little loyalty in the corporate world today.  You may have given 20 years of your life to a company, but the moment you become expendable they will dump you like a hot potato.

Millions of small businesses are really struggling right now too.

During the month of April, 43 percent of all small business renters in the United States were not able to pay their rent in full.  The last time we witnessed anything like this was during the lockdowns that were instituted during the early stages of the pandemic…

A significant number of small businesses across the nation are struggling to pay rent due to skyrocketing costs, a recent study by business networking platform Alignable found.

The company’s latest Small Business Rent report, published on Friday, found that 43 percent of small business renters in the U.S. were unable to pay their rent in full and on time in the month of April. Such a high delinquency rate hasn’t been reported in the U.S. since March 2021, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, when it reached 49 percent.

The delinquency rate was also four percentage points higher than in March, making it the largest month-over-month surge in over a year, according to data analyzed by Alignable.

We don’t have a disease to blame this time around.

Sadly, conditions are only going to get tougher for small businesses in the months ahead as sales dry up.

Meanwhile, the total number of retail stores in the U.S. closed so far in 2024 is up to nearly 2,600…

US retailers confirmed another 169 closures last week – bringing the total so far this year up to almost 2,600.

Stores that announced the shuttering of locations included Express, Outfox Hospitality, Shop ‘n Save, Urban Outfitters and Walmart.

We are in the midst of another retail apocalypse.

Why aren’t we hearing more about this?

On top of everything else, Chicago PMI is dropping at the fastest pace that we have seen since the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008….

After miraculously surging to two years highs in Nov 2023, Chicago PMI has plunged for five straight months, with the last four months seeing the MoM declines accelerating. Against expectations of a rise to 45.0 (from March’s 41.4), April’s PMI data printed 37.9

That is the worst five-month collapse since Lehman…

With everything that is going on, how in the world can anyone possibly claim that the economy “is in good shape”?

Economic activity is slowing down, mass layoffs are happening all over the country, and the cost of living is absolutely crushing the middle class.

More people are falling out of the middle class every day, and at this point there are tens of millions of Americans that are either considered to be either living in poverty or among the ranks of the “working poor”….

Over time, higher costs and sluggish wage growth have left more Americans financially vulnerable, with many known as “ALICEs.”

Nearly 40 million families, or 29% of the population, fall in the category of ALICE — Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed — according to United Way’s United for ALICE program, which first coined the term to refer to households earning above the poverty line but less than what’s needed to get by.

That figure doesn’t include the 37.9 million Americans who live in poverty, comprising 11.5% of the total population, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau.

Collectively, the two categories discussed above now comprise more than 40 percent of the total population.

And if you think that things are bad now, just wait until you see the suffering that will happen during the tremendous chaos that is dead ahead of us.

It took decades of very foolish decisions to get us here, and now we are at a historic tipping point.

Our economy is literally breaking down right in front of our eyes, and the path before us is going to be filled with so much pain.

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

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.  You can connect with Michael on YouTube, Facebook and Twitter, and sharing his articles on your own social media accounts 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, we strongly urge you to invite Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior today.

What we are witnessing throughout the nation right now is truly sad.  At colleges and universities all over the United States, crazed protesters are setting up encampments, attacking Jewish students, replacing the American flag with the Palestinian flag, and illegally occupying buildings.  Unfortunately, these protests are likely to become even more heated in the days ahead because Israel is preparing to make a really big move.  No matter how negotiations for a temporary ceasefire in Gaza turn out, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is promising that the IDF will go into Rafah and eliminate the Hamas forces that are hiding there…

Netanyahu said Israel would enter Rafah, which Israel says is Hamas’ last stronghold, regardless of whether a truce-for-hostages deal is struck. His comments appeared to be meant to appease his nationalist governing partners but it was not clear whether they would have any bearing on any emerging deal with Hamas.

“The idea that we will stop the war before achieving all of its goals is out of the question,” Netanyahu said, according to a statement from his office. “We will enter Rafah and we will eliminate Hamas’ battalions there — with or without a deal, to achieve the total victory.”

When this operation takes place, pro-Hamas protesters all over the U.S. will go completely nuts.

Of course there are many that would argue that they have already gone completely nuts.

On Tuesday, rabid pro-Hamas activists at Columbia University actually took over one of the most important buildings on campus…

Student protesters at Columbia University declared Tuesday morning that they have taken over a building near the campus’s South Lawn, raising the prospect of further turmoil at the Ivy League institution. The school responded by threatening to expel the students who occupied the building. Protesters and authorities are facing off on campuses across the nation, with arrests made and encampments closed at Cal Poly Humboldt, UNC Chapel Hill, the University of Florida and elsewhere.

Activists have barricaded all entrances to Hamilton Hall, and they are displaying a Palestinian flag from one of the windows…

Dozens of protesters took over a building at Columbia University in New York early Tuesday, barricading the entrances and unfurling a Palestinian flag out a window in the latest escalation of demonstrations against the Israel-Hamas war that have spread to college campuses nationwide.

Video footage showed protesters on Columbia’s Manhattan campus locking arms in front of Hamilton Hall early Tuesday and carrying furniture and metal barricades to the building, one of several that was occupied during a 1968 civil rights and anti-Vietnam War protest on the campus. Posts on an Instagram page for protest organizers shortly after midnight urged people to protect the encampment and join them at Hamilton Hall.

What in the world do they hope to accomplish by doing this?

One student that witnessed the occupation of the building is using the term “lawless” to describe what is happening…

Columbia junior Jessica Schwalb described the campus to CBS News as “lawless. Utter ancarchy.” She said demonstrators in Hamilton Hall “zip-tied the doorhandles together and then broke the windows, bashed the windows with hammers and put these metal bike locks around the door handles. They put the bike lock on the first set of doors is what I saw and then they were bringing tables, the heavy black metal tables from the eating area that’s right in front of Hamilton Hall, and had a group of people push them up against the door handles as a barricade and then people were also bringing furniture from Hamilton Hall to barricade inside.”

We haven’t seen anything like this in a long time.

Columbia was once one of our finest institutions of higher education, but now it has become an incubator for far-left radicals.

One attorney that is involved in suing Columbia is alleging that there have been “straight-out calls for the genocide of Jews” during the protests that have been happening at the university…

The attorney of an anonymous Jewish Columbia student who is suing the university for allegedly not providing “a safe educational environment” says his client is having to deal with calls for genocide while attending school.

“There are straight-out calls for the genocide of Jews. This has happened because of complacency and appeasement by our academic institutions,” Jay Edelson, who is representing the student, told NewNation’s Leland Vittert on “On Balance.”

And he also says that Jewish students have been “punched, shoved, spat upon, blocked from attending classes and moving freely about campus, and targeted by pro-terrorist hate speech”…

“The encampment has been the center of round-the-clock harassment of Jewish students, who have been punched, shoved, spat upon, blocked from attending classes and moving freely about campus, and targeted by pro-terrorist hate speech –– both verbal and in written form on massive banners and signs –– with statements such as: ‘Death to the Jews’; ‘Long live Hamas’; ‘Globalize the Intifada,’” the lawsuit said.

This is actually happening in the United States of America in 2024.

The protests at Columbia University are getting the most headlines, but the truth is that this sort of thing is happening at colleges and universities all over the country.

At Portland State University, students have actually been trying to take over the entire school library…

Officials at Portland State University in Oregon closed the campus Tuesday citing an “ongoing incident at library.” The school asked police to help remove dozens of protesters occupying the building. Last week the university paused seeking or accepting gifts or grants from Boeing pending a review of weapons sales to Israel.

Down in Texas, authorities are taking a much different approach to these protests.

Police are using flash bangs and pepper spray against pro-Hamas protesters, and dozens are being cuffed and hauled away…

Police in Austin arrested 79 pro-Palestine protestors who set up an encampment at the University of Texas – a marked contrast to NYC, where Columbia protesters have been allowed to take over parts of the campus.

Austin law enforcement moved in on the encampment on the university’s South Lawn before deploying flash bangs and pepper spray to disperse those that had gathered on Monday.

On Tuesday, Travis County jail confirmed that 79 people were arrested at the protests.

Sadly, this is just the beginning.

Once the IDF goes into Rafah, pro-Hamas protesters all over the U.S. will go completely insane.

If you live in an area where they are active, you will want to prepare yourself for that.

Meanwhile, the Biden administration seems quite eager to bring even more radicals into this nation.

It is being reported that the recent “aid package” that was just signed into law actually includes 3.5 billion dollars that will “supercharge mass migration from the Middle East”…

President Joe Biden’s pro-migration border chief is opening new processing centers for Muslim migrants, amid pro-HAMAS riots in U.S. cities and just after Congress granted $3.5 billion more for migration within the $95 billion aid package for Ukraine and Israel.

“Not only did the ‘Foreign Aid’ package do nothing to secure our own border, it included $3.5 Billion to supercharge mass migration from the Middle East,” said a tweet from Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-MO).

If you go back and check my past work, you will see that I specifically warned that we would see a dramatic rise in anti-semitism and that there would eventually be uncontrollable civil unrest all over the nation.

Now we are here.

It won’t be too long before this war in the Middle East goes to an entirely new level, and that will cause an explosion of anti-semitism that is unlike anything we have ever seen in this country.

And the unrest at our colleges and universities will become even worse during the months and years ahead.

Global events are building up to a crescendo, and the road that is in front of us is going to absolutely tear our society apart.

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

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.  You can connect with Michael on YouTube, Facebook and Twitter, and sharing his articles on your own social media accounts 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, we strongly urge you to invite Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior today.

It appears that the people running our system have decided that it is time for a wave of consolidation in the banking industry.  A key program that was keeping U.S. banks afloat was allowed to expire last month, and everyone knew what that would mean.  On Friday, the FDIC quietly announced that Republic Bank had been seized and a sale to Fulton Bank had already been arranged.  Have you noticed that they often try to announce bad news like this on Friday?  By the time news of the failure of Republic Bank broke, many people had already started their weekends.  And the FDIC probably assumes that most people will have forgotten all about this by the time Monday morning rolls around.  But this was a big deal, and it is inevitable that more dominoes will soon start to fall.

At the time it was seized, Republic Bank had 32 branches in New Jersey, Pennsylvania and New York.  The following comes directly from the FDIC announcement that was issued on Friday…

Philadelphia-based Republic First Bank (doing business as Republic Bank) was closed today by the Pennsylvania Department of Banking and Securities, which appointed the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) as receiver. To protect depositors, the FDIC entered into an agreement with Fulton Bank, National Association of Lancaster, Pennsylvania to assume substantially all of the deposits and purchase substantially all of the assets of Republic Bank.

Republic Bank’s 32 branches in New Jersey, Pennsylvania and New York will reopen as branches of Fulton Bank on Saturday (for branches with normal Saturday hours) or on Monday during normal business hours. This evening and over the weekend, depositors of Republic Bank can access their money by writing checks or using ATM or debit cards. Checks drawn on Republic Bank will continue to be processed and loan customers should continue to make their payments as usual.

I think that a pattern is emerging that we will likely continue to see for future bank failures.

Before this seizure was even announced, an agreement had already been made for a larger bank to swallow up the assets of Republic Bank.

Of course taxpayers didn’t exactly get off scot-free in this deal.  According to the FDIC, this agreement is going to cost the Deposit Insurance Fund 667 million dollars…

As of January 31, 2024, Republic Bank had approximately $6 billion in total assets and $4 billion in total deposits. The FDIC estimates that the cost to the Deposit Insurance Fund (DIF) related to the failure of Republic Bank will be $667 million. The FDIC determined that compared to other alternatives, Fulton Bank’s acquisition of Republic Bank is the least costly resolution for the DIF, an insurance fund created by Congress in 1933 and managed by the FDIC to protect the deposits at the nation’s banks.

If only a few banks fail this year, the Deposit Insurance Fund will be able to handle it.

But what is going to happen if dozens of banks start to fail?

It has been clear for a long time that Republic Bank was in trouble.

They were sitting on “$262 million of unrealized losses on bonds”, and Republic’s stock price had fallen all the way down to 1 cent…

The bank’s stock price has tumbled from just over $2 at the start of the year to about 1 cent on April 26, leaving it with a market capitalisation below $2 million. Its shares were delisted from the Nasdaq in August and now trade over the counter.

Moving forward, we will want to keep an eye on other banks that are currently on shaky ground.

For example, New York Community Bank would have completely collapsed already if a group of investors had not been convinced to pump a billion dollars into that troubled institution…

Recently, New York Community Bank saw wild swings in its stock price as customers began pulling their cash from the regional lender after it said it had identified “material weakness” in the company’s controls. The bank got a $1 billion equity investment lifeline from investors, including former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin’s firm, Liberty Strategic Capital, in March.

Of course it isn’t just New York Community Bank that is treading on thin ice.

Kevin O’Leary of Shark Tank fame is convinced that thousands of U.S. banks will fail during the years ahead…

In the next three to five years, thousands more regional institutions will fail. That’s why I don’t have a dime saved or invested in a single one.

One of the primary reasons why so many banks are on the brink of disaster is because we are facing a commercial real estate collapse of historic proportions.

In St. Louis, the tallest office building recently sold for 98 percent less than what it sold for in 2006…

Take, St Louis’s largest office building – its 44-story AT&T tower – for example. In 2006 this prime real estate sold for $205 million.

But that same now vacant skyscraper recently sold for around $3.5 million – a shocking 98 percent drop in value in less than two decades, the outlet reported.

The Railway Exchange Building, once the crown jewel of downtown St. Louis with its Famous Barr department store and sprawling offices, is also now an empty relic with peeling paint.

All over the nation, commercial real estate property values have fallen dramatically, and our small and mid-size banks are sitting on mountains of commercial real estate loans.

This story is not going to end well, and anyone that suggests otherwise is simply being delusional.

Meanwhile, more signs continue to emerge that the overall economy is rapidly heading in the wrong direction.

For example, Walmart just announced that it is closing two more stores…

Walmart is shutting another two stores next month – bringing the total closures announced this year to eight.

Bosses said the two stores – in California and Wisconsin – were not making enough money.

Walmart, which has already shut six in 2024, is among several major retailers to announce closures.

If bright economic times were ahead, Walmart wouldn’t be shutting stores down.

Just like everyone else, they can see what is coming.

Of course Joe Biden and his minions insist that everything is just great.

They are telling us that the economy is booming and that the unemployment rate is low.

But that is not the truth.

The Ludwig Institute For Shared Economic Prosperity analyzes the data provided by the federal government in order to calculate a “true rate of unemployment”…

Using data compiled by the federal government’s Bureau of Labor Statistics, the True Rate of Unemployment tracks the percentage of the U.S. labor force that does not have a full-time job (35+ hours a week) but wants one, has no job, or does not earn a living wage, conservatively pegged at $25,000 annually before taxes.

According to them, instead of an unemployment rate of “3.8 percent”, the true rate of unemployment is actually 24.2 percent.

Right now, there are countless people that continue to remain unemployed even though they are desperate to find a job.

Sadly, the employment market is only going to get tighter in the months ahead.

I am entirely convinced that global events will become extremely chaotic during the second half of this year, and that is going to have a devastating impact on our economy.

So whatever you need to do, I would encourage you to do it with haste.

Because the pace of events is not going to slow down for anyone, and it is much later than most people think that it is.

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

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.  You can connect with Michael on YouTube, Facebook and Twitter, and sharing his articles on your own social media accounts 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, we strongly urge you to invite Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior today.

According to the absurd numbers that the government feeds us, the unemployment rate is very low and there are lots of jobs available.  But if what they are telling us is true, why are so many Americans not able to find work?  As you will see below, some people haven’t been hired even though they have literally applied for hundreds of jobs.  There seems to be an enormous disconnect between what is actually happening in the real economy and the economic narrative that they are constantly pushing.  By the time you are done reading this article, I think that you will agree with me.

Earlier this week, I received an email from a reader that has not been able to find work after seven months of searching.

He gave me permission to share part of that email with you, and it is certainly quite heartbreaking…

Hi Michael,

I am a long-time reader of theeconomiccollapseblog.com, and your recent article comparing the economy to the movie “Weekend at Bernie’s” really stood out to me.

I’m really trying to figure out WHY it is so hard to find a job.

I was laid off from my job as a Custodial Foreman in September 2023, and have had ZERO results for my countless hours spent searching for comparable work.

I don’t know if you want to use any of this for an article or not, but if you do, please just keep doing what you normally do: Praising Jesus Christ. Without my faith in him I don’t know what I’d do.

When I wake up, I make coffee and turn on the computer and go through the state’s unemployment job search sites they provided me when I was laid off. I have been looking and also applying for jobs DAILY since September 2023. And these are not “rocket science” positions; I’m simply looking for Maintenance or Custodial or Groundskeeper type jobs. You know, “normal working class” type jobs.

But after ~300 applications (And these are all just to the jobs that I not only have experience for but also would actually want to do), I have had 1 interview. One interview in 7 months of applying and sending tailored cover letters with, daily!

If the economy is doing so “great”, why can’t he find employment?

Some of you may be tempted to think that he is just an isolated case.

Well, here is another example of an experienced worker that has applied for approximately 300 jobs without any success…

Royal Siu, who lives in Seattle and is trained as a pharmacist, likes to make his friends guess how many jobs he’s applied to. They’ll often toss out some number around 40, he told BI. He’ll tell them to keep going. Most give up by the time they reach 100. That’s when Siu drops that he’s applied to about 300 jobs. “It’s usually a shock factor to them,” he said.

Siu, who’s trying to use his pharmacy degree to work in other parts of healthcare, is finding it harder to land interviews than in a prior job search. The 28-year-old was getting more phone screenings and first and second interviews in the past. This time, it’s been a couple of months since he had a screening call. So he continues to turn to his network but also doesn’t stop applying.

What in the world is going on here?

I thought that there were “millions” of good jobs just waiting for someone to step into them.

Something definitely does not add up.

Even Americans with advanced degrees from top schools are increasingly finding themselves out of work.

If you doubt this, just check out these numbers…

Even at some top business schools, the number of recently minted M.B.A.s without jobs has roughly doubled from a couple of years ago, when U.S. companies were rushing to hire as many workers as they could, according to data from the schools.

At Harvard Business School, 20% of job-seeking 2023 M.B.A. graduates didn’t have one three months after graduation, up from 8% in 2021. At Stanford’s Graduate School of Business, 18% didn’t, compared with 9% in 2021. About 13% of those at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Sloan School of Management didn’t have a job within three months, up from about 5% in 2021.

How are those numbers possible if the unemployment rate is hovering near “historic lows”?

Of course the truth is that we have been sold a lie.

If you do not have a job, you are classified by the U.S. government as either “unemployed” or “not in the labor force”.

In 2008 and 2009, the combined total of those two categories never even reached 90 million.

Today, the combined total of those two categories is over 106 million.

The Biden administration says that only 6,429,000 Americans are officially “unemployed”.

The other 99,989,000 Americans without a job are considered to be “not in the labor force”.

And more will be lumped into those two categories soon, because large employers all over the nation continue to conduct mass layoffs.

For example, thousands of Tesla workers in California and Texas were just notified that they will be losing their jobs…

The notifications in California and Texas, where the electric vehicle (EV) maker has large presences, came in the form of WARN notices, according to reports.

In California, the planned Tesla headcount reductions will hit approximately 3,300 workers, The San Francisco Standard reported Tuesday.

They will apparently occur at locations in a total of four different cities in the Golden State.

Meanwhile, Texas will see almost 2,700 employees in Austin lose their jobs, according to the Austin American-Statesman.

Sadly, the pace of layoffs is likely to increase during the months ahead, because business activity in the U.S. is declining…

The U.S. economy lost momentum in April, a pair of S&P surveys found, as businesses reported a decline in new orders and reduced employment for the first time since the pandemic.

The flash U.S. manufacturing purchasing managers index slipped to a four-month low of 49.9 in April from 51.9 in March.

The S&P flash U.S. services PMI fell to a five-month low of 50.9 this month from 51.7 in March.

The surveys are the first indicators of each month to give a sense of how the U.S. economy is performing.

Meanwhile, the cost of living crisis just continues to escalate.

Shockingly, at one station in California gasoline now costs $7.29 per gallon…

Soaring gas prices have skyrocketed to a whopping $7.29 per gallon in some parts of California – which is above the current the national hourly minimum wage.

While the average price for a gallon of gas varies from state to state – drivers in a certain Silicon Valley town are facing particularly extortionate rates that set them back almost $150 for a full tank.

The Chevron gas station in Menlo Park was exposed on Sunday by a bewildered customer who posted on X that the price per gallon was four cents ‘above the federal hourly minimum wage.’

If you think that this is bad, just wait until the war in the Middle East transforms into the apocalyptic conflict that I believe it will become.

I am entirely convinced that inflation will continue to be a major problem even as economic activity in the U.S. slows down even more.

We are already experiencing “stagflation”.

What is eventually coming will be so much worse than that.

Of course the economic pain that we are going through is just one of the factors that is systematically destroying our nation.

A Warning to America: 25 Ways the US is Being Destroyed | Explained in Under 2 Minutes pic.twitter.com/qwmBO8DmMt

— Western Lensman (@WesternLensman) April 22, 2024

Just about all of our major institutions are crumbling, just about every sector of our society is in the process of melting down, and conditions are rapidly getting worse all around us.

And now we are heading into the most chaotic election season in the entire history of our country.

This is a recipe for disaster, but there is no turning back now.

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

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.  You can connect with Michael on YouTube, Facebook and Twitter, and sharing his articles on your own social media accounts 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, we strongly urge you to invite Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior today.

When I was a kid, “Weekend at Bernie’s” was one of my all-time favorite movies.  In that film, two guys worked really hard to convince everyone that their boss was still alive so that they wouldn’t get into trouble.  I remember laughing throughout that entire movie.  Today, the Biden administration is working really hard to convince all of us that the U.S. economy is still alive, and that isn’t funny at all.  A horrific cost of living crisis is absolutely crushing millions of U.S. households, large companies are conducting mass layoffs all over the nation, and the real estate industry is in a gigantic mess.  But Joe Biden and his minions would have us believe that everything is just fine.

What we are witnessing is so similar to a very shocking incident that recently happened in Brazil.

A very disturbed woman, seeking a loan, actually wheeled a corpse into a local bank…

Now Joe Biden, seeking another term, is wheeling out the corpse of the U.S. economy and pretending that it is still alive.

But no matter how many fake numbers they give us, we all know the truth.

Last week, I came across a very sad post by an elderly man on a popular Internet forum, and it was one of the most heartbreaking things that I have read in a very long time…

For the first time ever, the wife went to the local food bank yesterday. We had dinner last night because she did. My heart is crushed. I have always been able to keep food in our house. We met in 84 , married in 92 and we have had some tough times sure enough. But it’s never been like this. I don’t know how people are making it. Our bills are all paid. So we are indeed fortunate. The past two years has been an ever increasing decline in our ability to make ends meet. The cost of literally everything has taken what we use to put in the bank for road trips to the coast or mountains. Now we can’t afford to even feed ourselves.

How much more are you going to take from us? You democrats have brought us low. Now we can’t even afford to eat. The wife and I are thin anyways. The wife, she weighs maybe 95 pounds. I can not let her go without food. Now I will never retire. I will die with my work boots on.

Am I alone in this? Am I the only one who has lost so much just in the last two years? Are we the only couple going without food? In all my years things have never been this bad.

Are you democrats proud of yourselves? Is this what you wanted? An elderly couple who worked their whole lives Now begging for food?

This elderly man is employed.

But the cost of living crisis has gotten so bad that he and his wife literally cannot afford enough food to eat.

This is our economy now.

And with each passing day, even more American workers are being laid off.

In fact, we just learned that Nike has decided to lay off hundreds of workers at their world headquarters…

US athletic footwear and apparel company Nike announced late in the cash session on Friday that it is undergoing a restructuring effort to trim costs at its World Headquarters (WHQ) located in Beaverton, Oregon.

Michele Adams, VP of People Solutions at Nike, might be the most hated person at the company this afternoon. In a letter to staff, she wrote that “approximately 740 employees at WHQ” will be “permanently” laid off by late June.

No job in the private sector is truly safe at this point.

In recent months, we have seen dozens of large companies in the U.S. conduct mass layoffs.

And a lot more layoffs will be coming in the months ahead.

Meanwhile, the real estate industry continues to tank.

Last month, sales of previously owned homes were down 4.3 percent…

Sales of previously owned homes dropped 4.3% in March compared with February, to a seasonally adjusted annualized rate of 4.19 million units, according to the National Association of Realtors. Sales were 3.7% lower than in March 2023.

High interest rates are killing home sales, and they are absolutely devastating the commercial real estate industry.

But the Federal Reserve is scared to reduce interest rates at this point, because that will just make our cost of living crisis even worse.

They have trapped themselves in a no win situation.

After years of incredibly bad decisions, those that are running our economy are out of good options.

But even though economic conditions are so bad right now, Joe Biden and his minions would like us to believe that everything is just great and that a new golden age of prosperity is right around the corner…

It is mind-blowing that Biden’s campaign ads still claim he helped the ordinary American worker. The economic bad news just keeps coming, as inflation climbs up and up in spite of propaganda to the contrary, real wages drop, and the value of the dollar goes down both at home and abroad. And even while real wages are decreasing, inflation is costing Americans an estimated $1,000 extra every month.

The rich are doing well, but the rest of us are struggling. The wealthiest Americans reportedly increased their fortunes by $195 billion just in Biden’s first 100 days in office back in 2021, and it didn’t stop there. Economist Dave Brat noted on April 10 that the wealth of America’s top 1% hit a record $44 trillion. The top 1% own half of our country’s individually held stocks, while 87% of such stocks and mutual funds belong to the top 10% of Americans.

Biden’s economy helps the uber-rich, but it is absolutely disastrous for ordinary Americans.

If you are ultra-wealthy, you are probably doing extremely well in this economic environment.

But just about everyone else is really struggling.

We really do have a “Weekend at Bernie’s economy”, and the Democrats really do have a “Weekend at Bernie’s candidate”…

That video would be a lot funnier if it wasn’t so true.

By now, most of you realize that this story is not going to end well.

In my latest book entitled “Chaos”, I included a lot of practical tips that will help you get prepared for what is ahead of us.

A major economic meltdown has already begun, but we are still only in the early chapters.

And it has become exceedingly clear that the guys that are currently running the show are definitely not equipped to lead us out of this mess.

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

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.  You can connect with Michael on YouTube, Facebook and Twitter, and sharing his articles on your own social media accounts 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, we strongly urge you to invite Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior today.