The Economic Collapse

Is this “the Big One”?  On Wednesday, I warned that the Federal Reserve had made a “colossal mistake” when it increased its benchmark interest rate by 50 basis points, and it looks like investors on Wall Street fully agree.  We just witnessed one of the largest single day stock market crashes in history, and of course this comes at a time when stock prices had already fallen quite dramatically.  Even before the carnage on Thursday, stocks were off to their worst start to a year in decades.  So will things settle down soon, or is this the beginning of a truly historic stock market collapse? (Read More...)

You don’t raise interest rates when the economy is already falling into a recession.  U.S. GDP contracted during the first quarter of 2022, and if it contracts again in the second quarter of 2022 that will officially confirm that we are already in a recession right now.  Any central banker that would choose to raise interest rates just as a new recession is starting is absolutely nuts.  But the “experts” at the Fed decided to go ahead with a 50 basis point rate hike on Wednesday anyway.  This was the largest rate hike that we have seen since the year 2000, and it appears that more rate hikes are coming later in the year. (Read More...)

Before you get upset with my headline, please read my analysis.  I think that overturning Roe v. Wade is long overdue, and it is an absolutely wonderful thing for our country.  But as I will explain in this article, that step alone won’t dramatically change the number of abortions that are performed in the United States.  In most blue states, the abortion industry will continue to operate normally, and in most red states the anti-abortion laws that will be implemented will not cover most abortions. (Read More...)

I am sitting here absolutely stunned as I write this.  According to a draft decision obtained by Politico, the U.S. Supreme Court is going to overturn Roe v. Wade.  My initial reaction was that this is the best news that we have had in decades.  We all knew that the Dobbs case had the potential to be really big, but I was skeptical that Roe would actually be overturned.  I just didn’t think that the votes were there.  But if this draft opinion is the real deal, it appears that is precisely what is about to happen.  The draft opinion was apparently written by Samuel Alito, and Politico is calling it “a full-throated, unflinching repudiation of the 1973 decision”… (Read More...)

Even though there have been so many problems with the economy over the last 12 months, many Americans continued to believe that everything would eventually be okay because stock prices remained stubbornly high.  But now that stock prices are crashing, the cold, harsh reality of what we are facing is starting to set in for millions upon millions of people.  Trillions of dollars in paper wealth has already been wiped out, and many experts are warning that the worst is still yet to come.  I have always warned my readers that you only make money in the stock market if you get out in time, and unfortunately there are a whole lot of investors out there that didn’t get out in time. (Read More...)

Should the fact that the U.S. economy actually contracted during the first quarter actually surprise any of us?  Since the start of 2022, there has been crisis after crisis, and now the war in Ukraine is depressing economic activity all over the planet.  What we are facing could most definitely be described as a “perfect storm”, and the truth is that this storm isn’t going to go away any time soon.  But where do we go from here?  Will the U.S. economy bounce back, or will this new economic downturn soon become even worse?  Most economic optimists are assuming that the former will be true, while many economic realists are issuing dire warnings about what is ahead. (Read More...)

Vladimir Putin is threatening to use nukes again.  If Russia ultimately decides to conduct a surprise first strike, are you living near a location that is likely to get nuked?  Many people assume that the vast majority of the U.S. population would immediately die if a nuclear war erupts, but that isn’t true.  It has been estimated that only about 20 percent of the U.S. population would be wiped out right away, more would die later on from radiation exposure, but the vast majority of the population would actually die from starvation during the subsequent weeks and months due to the “nuclear winter” that would stretch on for at least a couple of years.  So if a nuclear war does happen, you will need enough food for yourself, your family and everyone that will be depending upon you for as long as you plan to stay alive. (Read More...)

Is the party finally over on Wall Street?  So far this month, the Dow is down more than 4 percent, the S&P 500 is down almost 8 percent, and the Nasdaq has fallen over 12 percent.  In fact, the Nasdaq dropped almost 4 percent on Tuesday alone, and at this point it is almost 23 percent below the all-time high.  Needless to say, that puts the Nasdaq solidly into bear market territory.  Tech stocks were at the front of the long march up the mountain, and now they are leading the avalanche back down.  Hundreds of billions of dollars in paper wealth is being wiped out, and a lot of the “experts” are suddenly warning that the worst is still yet to come. (Read More...)