The Economic Collapse

Communities all over the United States are being taken over by giant homeless encampments, but we are supposed to believe that this is perfectly normal.  The Biden administration is trying very hard to convince all of us that the economy is in fine shape even though many of our most prominent corporations are currently conducting mass layoffs and even though Challenger, Gray & Christmas is telling us that the number of jobs cuts during the first three months of this year was up 396 percent compared to the same period last year.  Just like in 2008 and 2009, large numbers of people that have lost their jobs or their businesses are ending up living in the streets, and as a result homeless encampments are absolutely exploding in size from coast to coast. (Read More...)

Every time that they tell us that everything is fine, things just seem to get even worse.  This banking crisis was supposed to be “over” after Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank collapsed.  It wasn’t.  Then it was supposed to be “over” after First Republic collapsed.  It wasn’t.  By now, most of you already know about what has been happening to PacWest, Western Alliance, First Horizon and countless other regional bank stocks.  In all my years, I have never seen banking stocks fall so quickly.  If this avalanche continues to pick up momentum, pretty soon we will have to stop talking about a “banking industry crisis” and start talking about a “banking industry apocalypse”. (Read More...)

They actually did it.  Even though banks are collapsing, the commercial real estate market is imploding, home sales are plunging, and large companies are laying off workers all over America, the Federal Reserve just decided to raise interest rates even higher.  This is nothing less than economic malpractice.  They know that higher rates are crushing the economy, but they apparently believe that more pain is needed.  Officials at the Fed just hiked rates another 25 basis points, and they are now the highest that they have been since August 2007… (Read More...)

Things weren’t supposed to move this quickly.  Just hours after First Republic was dissected, two more major banks are in very serious trouble.  Are the dominoes going to start to fall more quickly than we were anticipating?  After his bank gobbled up First Republic, Jamie Dimon told the world that “this part of the crisis is over”, and many in the corporate media believed him.  Unfortunately, Wall Street is not buying it.  On Tuesday, “fears around contagion in the regional banking sector” pushed stock prices significantly lower… (Read More...)

Yes, you read the headline correctly.  Collectively, the three big banks that have collapsed in 2023 had more assets than all 25 banks that collapsed in 2008 did.  Unfortunately, the banking collapse of 2023 is far from over.  We still have eight more months to go before this year is done, and many more banks are currently teetering on the brink of disaster.  Executives at those banks are telling us not to worry, but of course executives at First Republic were issuing similar assurances just last week.  Personally, I had heard that First Republic supposedly had enough reserves to keep going for months.  But that was a lie, and now First Republic is toast.  The following comes from the official statement that the FDIC issued when it took over the bank… (Read More...)

It should have been apparent to everyone that the dark clouds on the horizon would bring a storm, and now rain is furiously falling all around us.  Our entire system is being viciously shaken, and the dominoes are going to continue to fall in the months ahead.  Once Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank went down, we all knew that it was just a matter of time before more large banks started to implode.  Now First Republic has failed, and over the weekend U.S. regulators were working very hard to arrange a sale… (Read More...)

The biggest companies in the United States are giving the axe to hundreds of thousands of workers, but this should not come as a shock to any of us.  Officials at the Federal Reserve were warned over and over again that they were going to create an extremely harsh economic environment if they aggressively raised interest rates, and that is exactly what has transpired.  We haven’t seen a tsunami of layoffs like this since 2008 and 2009, and the outlook for the months ahead is extremely bleak. (Read More...)

Is another domino about to fall?  Our system was greatly shaken when Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank suddenly collapsed, but we seem to have weathered that storm.  But what will happen if an even larger bank goes under?  As of March 31st, First Republic had approximately 290 billion dollars in assets, and that makes it much larger than Silicon Valley Bank was when it finally imploded.  A 30 billion dollar rescue plan that was hastily put together last month was supposed to stabilize First Republic, but that hasn’t worked.  On Tuesday, First Republic shares fell by about 50 percent after the public learned that “customers withdrew more than $100 billion during last month’s crisis”… (Read More...)