2021

America’s Slide Into Economic Oblivion Is Already Starting To Accelerate Here In 2021

Isn’t it fun to live in a rotting, decaying society that is coming apart at the seams all around us?  The latest economic numbers are extremely depressing, but now that free speech is being abolished and the elite are consolidating control over every aspect of our society, we are being assured that better days are right around the corner.  We have just got to be willing to accept the “new normal” which includes living in “tiny homes”, snacking on worms, and never expressing any independent thoughts which diverge from official mainstream narratives.  So with that in mind, I will try to share the horrible economic news that we have been getting in the most positive light possible.

This week, we learned that another 965,000 Americans filed new claims for unemployment benefits during the previous week…

The number of people seeking unemployment aid soared last week to 965,000, the most since late August and evidence that the resurgent virus has caused a spike in layoffs.

The latest figures for jobless claims, issued Thursday by the Labor Department, remain at levels never seen until the virus struck. Before the pandemic, weekly applications typically numbered around 225,000. Last spring, after nationwide shutdowns took effect, applications for jobless benefits spiked to nearly 7 million – 10 times the previous record high. After declining over the summer, weekly claims have been stuck above 700,000 since September.

But we are being told that this is only because of the failed policies of the outgoing administration and that things will definitely be much better under the next socialist administration.

2020 was particularly a tough year for low paid workers.  At this point, even officials at the Federal Reserve are admitting that the unemployment rate for low paid workers “is above 20%”…

Unemployment for the lowest-paid workers in the U.S. is above 20%, a figure that Federal Reserve Governor Lael Brainard said underscores the importance of policy help for the economy.

The figure indicates how uneven the recovery has seen since efforts to control the Covid-19 pandemic resulted in the biggest quarterly GDP drop since the Great Depression.

How can we put a positive spin on this?

Well, at least more of them have had an opportunity to stay home and not catch COVID.

So I guess you could say that this unemployment crisis has actually had a positive impact for public health.

And more Americans are getting the opportunity to “stay home” with each passing day.  Here is just one example…

Dropbox is cutting its global workforce by about 11%, the company said in an 8K filing released Wednesday. The company’s stock was down more than 4.5% in late-morning trading.

The move will affect 315 people, who will be notified by the end of the business day.

Of course as fear of COVID continues to rise, American consumers are doing less shopping at Walmart and other corporate behemoths, and U.S. retail sales just fell for a third month in a row.

But that problem will soon be fixed, because more universal basic income checks are on the way.

All of the previous socialist “stimulus packages” weren’t enough, and so Joe Biden has unveiled “a $1.9 trillion plan to prop up the economy”…

Friday offered the first chance for traders to act after President-elect Joe Biden unveiled details of a $1.9 trillion plan to prop up the economy. He called for $1,400 cash payments for most Americans, the extension of temporary benefits for laid-off workers and a push to get COVID-19 vaccines to more Americans. It certainly fit with investors’ expectation for a big and bold plan, but markets had already rallied powerfully in anticipation of it.

Doesn’t that sound great?

And Biden is also calling for “a national minimum wage of $15 an hour”.

Don’t worry, that won’t hurt the restaurant industry at all.

I don’t know why that statement is true, but that is what the “fact checkers” want us to say.

And since Republicans and Democrats both abandoned any pretense of fiscal responsibility long ago, nobody is really pointing out that we are already 27.6 trillion dollars in debt and that we simply can’t afford any more “stimulus packages”.

In fact, thanks to all of the reckless spending that we have already done, the budget deficit for the month of December 2020 was more than 10 times larger than the budget deficit for the month of December 2019…

The U.S. government posted a December budget deficit of $144 billion – a record for the month – due to far higher outlays with coronavirus relief spending and unemployment benefits, while revenues ticked slightly higher, the Treasury Department said on Wednesday.

The Treasury said the December deficit compares with a $13 billion deficit in December 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic started in the United States.

Overall, the U.S. national debt increased by more than 7 trillion dollars under the outgoing administration, and even CNN is admitting that “it will go much higher under Biden”.

But the adherents of Modern Monetary Theory assure us that “deficits don’t matter” and that we can borrow and spend as much money as we want.

Since that is true, why don’t we make the stimulus payments much larger?

If we are liquidating the Republic anyway, why not send a billion dollars to everyone?

Seriously though, there are millions upon millions of Americans that are deeply hurting as the U.S. economy melts down all around us.

I hope that you enjoyed my attempt at injecting some humor into our situation, but what many Americans are facing right now is not humorous at all.

At this point, most Americans are barely scraping by from month to month, and some are literally facing life or death financial decisions…

A mother’s tearful confession that she can’t afford her son’s insulin despite working full-time has left commenters deriding the American healthcare system.

Katie Schieffer’s ten-year-old son was recently diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes and requires insulin every two hours — but the North Carolina mother was left in tears when she couldn’t afford his $1,000 prescription.

Can you imagine what it would be like to be in her shoes?

Our entire system is failing, and things are only going to get worse in the months and years ahead.

For decades, America has been running in the wrong direction and our leaders have been making incredibly foolish decisions.

Now there is deep pain everywhere around us, and the level of suffering is only going to increase as the U.S. slides even faster toward economic oblivion.

***Michael’s new book entitled “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.***

About the Author: My name is Michael Snyder and my brand new book entitled “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America” is now available on Amazon.com.  In addition to my new book, I have written four others that are available on Amazon.com including The Beginning Of The End, Get Prepared Now, and Living A Life That Really Matters. (#CommissionsEarned)  By purchasing the books you help to support the work that my wife and I are doing, and by giving it to others you help to multiply the impact that we are having on people all over the globe.  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, Twitter and Parler, and any way that you can share these articles with others is a great help.  During these very challenging times, people will need hope more than ever before, and it is our goal to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with as many people as we possibly can.

“655 people have $4 trillion in wealth. 200 million can’t cover a $1000 expense.”

The COVID pandemic has caused the gap between the ultra-wealthy and the rest of us to grow larger than it ever has been before.  Thanks to the hyperinflationary policies of the Federal Reserve and our politicians in Washington, stock prices have soared to unprecedented heights in recent months.  This pushed the wealth of the uber-rich to dizzying heights, but for the rest of the country 2020 was an unmitigated nightmare.  As I have discussed previously, one survey found that 2020 was a “personal financial disaster” for 55 percent of all Americans.  More than 110,000 restaurants shut down permanently last year, Americans filed more than 70 million claims for unemployment benefits, and tens of millions are potentially facing eviction in 2021.  But even though we are mired in the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression of the 1930s, those at the very top of the economic pyramid are laughing all the way to the bank.

Earlier today, I came across a tweet from Sven Heinrich that really struck an emotional chord with me…

655 people have $4 trillion in wealth.

200 million can’t cover a $1000 expense.

I certainly don’t have any problem with people gaining wealth by working extremely hard and making society a better place in the process.

But most of the people at the very top of the economic pyramid only increased their wealth in 2020 because the powers that be decided to open up the firehoses and rain obscene amounts of money on them.

That isn’t right.

As a result of the deeply flawed policies that were implemented because of the COVID pandemic, the gap between “gains in financial assets and the health of the economy” was the largest ever recorded last year…

But as stock market indexes staged a huge rebound from the lows seen in March when the pandemic first hit, the gap between the wealthy and the poor extended an already widening trend to historic proportions.

A report via BofA Global Research published on Friday notes that a measure of the differential between gains in financial assets and the health of the economy hit a record at 6.3X in 2020.

My regular readers are probably sick and tired of hearing me say that the stock market has become completely divorced from economic reality, and now we have a hard number which backs up what I have been saying all along.

As I write this article, the Dow is sitting just above 31,000, and that is utterly absurd.

If the Dow were to fall to 15,000 it would still be overvalued.

Meanwhile, a brand new survey has discovered that only 39 percent of all Americans “would be able to cover an unexpected $1,000 expense”…

Just 39% of Americans would be able to cover an unexpected $1,000 expense, according to a new report from Bankrate.com.

That’s down from 2020, when 41% of people said they could cover a $1,000 cost with their savings.

If only 39 percent of Americans currently have enough money for such an unexpected expense, that means that 61 percent of Americans do not.

According to Google, the current population of the U.S. is 328 million, and 61 percent of 328 million is just over 200 million.

So that is where Sven Heinrich got that figure from.

200 million of us have so little money that we are just barely scraping by from month to month.

And according to one of Walmart’s top executives, many of their customers do not expect “any kind of speedy recovery”…

Walmart Chief Customer Officer Janey Whiteside said Tuesday that many of its shoppers don’t expect the economy to quickly bounce back from the coronavirus pandemic.

Almost half of customers surveyed in November told Walmart that they were worried about the current health of the economy, she said when speaking at the virtual National Retail Federation conference. She said 40% said they didn’t expect “any kind of speedy recovery.”

Unfortunately, those that are pessimistic about how the U.S. economy will perform in 2021 are right on target.

It is going to be a very painful year.

Of course it isn’t just consumers that are concerned about the year ahead.  Small business optimism is falling as well…

A popular gauge of small-business confidence in the US sank to a seven-month low in December as stricter lockdown measures and climbing daily case counts cut into economic activity.

The National Federation of Independent Businesses’ index of small-business optimism fell 5.5 points last month to 95.9, according to a Tuesday release. The reading lands below the average index value since 1978 of 98 and marks the lowest level since May. Economists surveyed by Bloomberg expected the gauge to dip slightly to 100.2.

Americans generally tend to be quite optimistic about the future, but looking ahead there just aren’t any reasons to be optimistic about the U.S. economy in 2021.

The COVID pandemic continues to get even worse, new lockdowns have been instituted all over the country, our federal government is in a state of chaos, and there will inevitably be more rioting, looting and civil unrest in the months ahead.

Plus, there will undoubtedly be some additional unexpected surprises that most people are not anticipating.

Before I wrap up this article, there is just one more thing that I wanted to mention.  A programmer in San Francisco named Stefan Thomas is the proud owner of 7,002 Bitcoin, but he can’t access his fortune because he forgot the password, and he only has two more tries before he is locked out permanently…

Take Stefan Thomas, a programmer in San Francisco, who told The New York Times that he has 7,002 Bitcoin tucked away — currently worth about $236 million, nearly a quarter billion dollars — but that he has no idea how to access it and can only guess two more passwords before being locked out forever.

Even setting aside the long term prospects for crypto, the key message of these horror stories is that taking digital finances into your own hands is a huge risk if you can’t manage your passwords.

Can you imagine how you would feel if that happened to you?

Sadly, it could be argued that essentially the same thing is happening to the nation as a whole.

America has “forgotten the password” to what once made us so great, and we are running out of chances.

Let us hope that we wake up before it is too late, because time is not on our side at this point.

***Michael’s new book entitled “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.***

About the Author: My name is Michael Snyder and my brand new book entitled “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America” is now available on Amazon.com.  In addition to my new book, I have written four others that are available on Amazon.com including The Beginning Of The End, Get Prepared Now, and Living A Life That Really Matters. (#CommissionsEarned)  By purchasing the books you help to support the work that my wife and I are doing, and by giving it to others you help to multiply the impact that we are having on people all over the globe.  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, Twitter and Parler, and any way that you can share these articles with others is a great help.  During these very challenging times, people will need hope more than ever before, and it is our goal to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with as many people as we possibly can.

Without Freedom Of Speech, What Is Going To Happen To America?

It is quite ironic that many of those that are always telling us that we need “diversity” in our society are also some of the strongest voices against a “diversity of viewpoints” on social media.  The founders of this nation wanted to make sure that nobody would ever take the right to freedom of speech away from us, and that is why it was enshrined in the Bill of Rights.  Unfortunately, courts have greatly eroded that right over the last several decades, and now we are facing an all-out assault on freedom of speech that is unlike anything that we have ever seen before.  And once freedom of speech is completely gone, all of our other rights will soon follow, because there will no longer be any way to defend them.

When the United States was established, government was really the only major threat to free speech.  In early America, corporations were severely limited in size and scope, and that is because our founders were determined not to let them get too big or too powerful.

Our founders knew that enormous concentrations of money and power would be great threats to freedom, and that has definitely turned out to be the case.

In the old days, if you wanted to express yourself you could grab a soapbox and head down to a local street corner.  The reason why we use the term “marketplace of ideas” today is because people literally used to gather in marketplaces and town squares and exchange ideas with one another.

In our time, the Internet has become the place where we all gather to exchange ideas, but unfortunately control of all of the most important gathering spaces is in the hands of a very small group of colossal tech corporations.

When Facebook, Twitter and others were first growing, they generally allowed people to say pretty much what they wanted to say, and information flowed pretty freely.

But censorship has escalated dramatically over the past four years, and it reached a crescendo the other day when Twitter announced that it would be permanently suspending President Trump’s account.

How would our founders feel about that?

Tech giants such as Facebook and Twitter now have more money than many entire countries do, and in many ways they also have the same level of power that many national governments possess.

Just think about this – President Trump could never take away your ability to express yourself, but Facebook and Twitter can.

Of course big corporations dominate just about every other aspect of our society as well.  These collectivist institutions have become extremely dangerous, and they are really starting to throw their weight around.

Until the power of the big corporations is addressed, we will never have a truly free society again.

Just like leftist governments, big corporations seek to gather as much money and as much power under a single umbrella as possible.

Our founders wanted to empower the individual, and that is why they wanted to limit the size of government and that is why they also wanted to limit the size of corporations.

Sadly, it wasn’t just President Trump that got booted off Twitter in recent days.  Hordes of conservative accounts have been wiped out, and this has led many to use the word “purge” to describe what has been happening.

On my Twitter account, I have literally lost more than a thousand followers in just a few days.  Others have lost a lot more.

Many conservatives have been fleeing to Parler, but over the past several days the big tech giants teamed up to take that entire platform down…

Parler will likely go offline for “a while” Sunday evening given Amazon Web Services’ decision to suspend the upstart social media platform after Wednesday’s U.S. Capitol riot, executives said Sunday.

“We are clearly being singled out,” Chief Policy Officer Amy Peikoff told “Fox & Friends Weekend” one day after Apple suspended Parler from its App Store even as it surged to the No. 1 spot in the free apps section earlier in the day.

I was absolutely stunned when I heard that had happened.

These people are not playing games.

For the moment, Gab.com is still up, and their traffic has surged more than 750 percent in just the last few days…

Gab.com, the free speech friendly social network, says traffic has increased by more than 750 percent in the past few days, following the blacklisting of President Donald Trump from most mainstream tech platforms.

“Our traffic is up 753% in the past 24 hours. Tens of millions of visits,” said Gab in response to a question about slow loading speeds.

But how long will it be before Gab is taken down as well?

The big tech companies don’t want diversity, they don’t want competition and they don’t want dissent.

What they want is complete and total domination.

Cancel culture is not good for our society.  If everyone with viewpoints that are not “politically correct” is eventually “canceled” we will have a society that looks a whole lot like communist China.

And I suppose that is precisely what a lot of people out there truly want.

It is not always easy to listen to viewpoints that you consider to be offensive.  Personally, I do not like most of what my fellow citizens are saying in 2021.

But in the United States we are not supposed to silence opposing viewpoints that we do not like.  Instead, we are supposed to strive for victory in the marketplace of ideas by showing that our viewpoints are better.

Unfortunately, the big tech companies have decided that millions of Americans should no longer be allowed to participate in the marketplace of ideas because their viewpoints are just too offensive.

Ironically, many of those that are doing the censoring have the most offensive and the most dangerous viewpoints of all.

Needless to say, if we stay on the path that we are currently on there is no future for America.

Without free speech, the system of government that our founders established simply won’t work.

What is the point of even having elections if we can only express one point of view?

In China, no dissent is allowed and one political party runs everything on a permanent basis.

America appears to be heading in the same direction, and there are millions of people in this country that are actually quite thrilled that this is happening.

***Michael’s new book entitled “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.***

About the Author: My name is Michael Snyder and my brand new book entitled “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America” is now available on Amazon.com.  In addition to my new book, I have written four others that are available on Amazon.com including The Beginning Of The End, Get Prepared Now, and Living A Life That Really Matters. (#CommissionsEarned)  By purchasing the books you help to support the work that my wife and I are doing, and by giving it to others you help to multiply the impact that we are having on people all over the globe.  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, Twitter and Parler, and any way that you can share these articles with others is a great help.  During these very challenging times, people will need hope more than ever before, and it is our goal to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with as many people as we possibly can.

The Worse Things Get, The More The Stock Market Likes It

No matter how bad things become, stock prices just keep going up and up and up.  In 2020, we experienced the worst public health crisis in 100 years, the U.S. economy was plunged into the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression of the 1930s, Americans filed more than 70 million claims for unemployment benefits, and civil unrest raged in major cities all across the United States.  Meanwhile, we witnessed the greatest stock market rally in American history.  No matter what happened, nothing could seem to dampen the wild euphoria on Wall Street.

To start 2021, many believed that we had finally reached a point when bad news would finally start driving stock prices down.  Yesterday, I wrote about how some experts were warning that stock prices could fall substantially if Democrats gained control of the U.S. Senate after the runoff elections in Georgia.  Well, in the short-term those experts were proven wrong.  In fact, the Dow Jones Industrial Average actually rose 437 points on Wednesday.

Of course the bigger news on Wednesday was the utter chaos that we witnessed at the U.S. Capitol in Washington.  Doors and windows were smashed, members of Congress had to be evacuated, and protesters freely roamed through the halls and offices.  You would think that something like that would definitely send stock prices plunging, but instead the Dow ended the day up 437 points.

Even though we have just come through the worst year in recent memory, and even though our system of government is in disarray, stock prices hit an all-time record high on Wednesday.

One explanation for this is that investors consider the chaos in Washington to just be “temporary”…

“Although the takeover of the Capitol is shocking, it’s widely perceived to be temporary and contained in scope, at least in the immediate term,” says Yung-Yu Ma, chief investment strategist and managing director at BMO Wealth Management.

“This is going to be dealt with pretty swiftly and won’t have lasting repercussions in terms of disruptions to the government,” Ma added. “It won’t change the trajectory of a Biden presidency in the coming weeks.”

We shall see what happens, but a lot of people out there are not so optimistic that the governmental shaking that we have been witnessing will pass so easily.

Moving forward, investors appear to be salivating at the prospect that a Biden administration will mean that more stimulus money is on the way…

“I think there’s an expectation … that there’s going to be a lot more spending,” Jason Trennert, chairman of Strategas, said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Wednesday. “If the Democrats were to pick up two seats, there’s no question in my mind that later this year there would be a sense that more spending is needed.”

Goldman Sachs expects another big stimulus package to the tune of $600 billion in the near term if Democrats prevail and take the Senate.

Why not make it $600 trillion?

Every dollar that we borrow and spend just makes our long-term problems even worse, and so why not get the process over with?

As I discussed the other day, the trillions of dollars that have already been pumped into our system over the past 12 months by the Federal Reserve and by our politicians in Washington have fundamentally changed the trajectory of our future.  The money supply is rising at an exponential rate, and we are now on a hyperinflationary path.

Sadly, under a Biden administration there will be no going back.  Instead, the accelerator will be pushed even further toward the floor.

But it isn’t just our financial system that is in grave danger.

Our system of government is also in grave danger as well.

Our culture is in grave danger too.

In fact, our entire society is in grave danger.

There is no future for our country if we stay on the path that we are currently on.  We are engaging in self-destructive behavior in thousands of different ways, and even though there have been endless warnings, we are so addicted to our self-destructive behavior that we just can’t help ourselves.

At this point, it is difficult to imagine how anyone can possibly be optimistic about the future of our nation.

But apparently stock market investors disagree, because they just keep pushing stock prices higher and higher.

It shall be very interesting to watch how high they can go before the system finally implodes.

***Michael’s new book entitled “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.***

About the Author: My name is Michael Snyder and my brand new book entitled “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America” is now available on Amazon.com.  In addition to my new book, I have written four others that are available on Amazon.com including The Beginning Of The End, Get Prepared Now, and Living A Life That Really Matters. (#CommissionsEarned)  By purchasing the books you help to support the work that my wife and I are doing, and by giving it to others you help to multiply the impact that we are having on people all over the globe.  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, Twitter and Parler, and any way that you can share these articles with others is a great help.  During these very challenging times, people will need hope more than ever before, and it is our goal to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with as many people as we possibly can.

Experts Are Warning That The Stock Market Could Fall Dramatically If Democrats Take Control Of The Senate

The results from Georgia are going to have enormous implications for the financial markets.  If Democrats win both of the seats that are up for grabs, that will give them control of the Senate, the House of Representatives and the White House.  For the first time since the first two years of Barack Obama’s presidency, the Democrats would have an opportunity to advance their agenda without compromising with the Republicans, and that is extremely frightening for investors.  The Democrats have made it very clear that they intend to raise taxes on big corporations and the ultra-wealthy, and that wouldn’t be good for the stock market bubble at all.

As I write this article, the two races are still too close to call, and we probably won’t know the final results for a while.

But experts are already warning that we could see a huge stock market decline if both Democratic candidates win.  For example, former Trump adviser Steve Moore is warning that the Dow could fall by 1,000 points…

Former Trump senior economic adviser Steve Moore argued on Tuesday, the day voters in Georgia head to the polls for the Senate runoff elections, that a Democratic sweep could lead to the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropping by 1,000 points.

Moore says that he came to this conclusion by examining data from the last 60 years…

“I looked at the evidence of what’s happened in the last 60 years or so with respect to the stock market in terms of three different scenarios: One is Republicans control everything in Washington, the second scenario being Democrats control everything in Washington, the third being divided control of power and in general the best scenario for economic growth has been when you have divided power,” Moore said.

“The worst scenario over the last 50 or 60 years is when Democrats have control over all the levers of power so I would think the historical record is pretty clear on this, that a Democrat sweep tonight would be bad for markets,” he continued.

Oppenheimer’s John Stoltzfus is even more pessimistic.  He believes that we could see the stock market drop by a total of six to ten percent if both Democrats win…

That’s according to Oppenheimer chief investment strategist John Stoltzfus, who wrote in a note to clients on Monday that investors may be spooked by the prospect of increased corporate taxes and government spending under the Biden administration with a Democratic majority in the House and the Senate.

“A Democratic sweep of the two runoff elections in Georgia could cause the U.S. broad equity market to experience a downdraft of anywhere between 6% and 10%,” Stolzfus wrote.

Large corporations were thrilled with President Trump’s tax cuts, but Joe Biden has said that he intends to get rid of them.

But in order to do that, Joe Biden needs a Senate that is controlled by Democrats, because a Republican-controlled Senate would never go for what he is proposing…

Biden has repeatedly said he would roll back President Trump’s 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act and raise the corporate tax rate to 28% from 21%, restore the top individual tax rate to 39.6% from 37%, tax capital gains as ordinary income, cap deductions for high earners, expand the Earned Income Tax Credit for workers over the age of 65 and impose the Social Security payroll tax on wages above $400,000. Without a Democratic-controlled Senate, those tax hikes are likely off the table.

At this moment, it is not clear who will win, but investors will be watching the results very, very closely.

According to officials in Georgia, we should have a pretty good idea of who won by the middle of the day on Wednesday…

“Depends how close it is, but most likely it’ll probably be tomorrow morning. It really depends how many absentee ballots,” Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger told Fox News Tuesday morning.

David Worley, a member of the State Election Board, told The New York Times that if processing goes smoothly, officials will “have a pretty good idea” of who won by 1 a.m. Wednesday.

With so much on the line, spending on these races has reached levels that we have never witnessed before.  The following comes from Zero Hedge…

  • Roughly $404 million was spent on advertising in the Perdue-Ossoff race, according to Advertising Analytics, making it the most expensive Senate race ever.
  • Nearly $300 million was spent on advertising in the Loeffler-Warnock race, making it the second most expensive Senate race ever – behind only Perdue-Ossoff.

Can you imagine how much good could have been done if 704 million dollars had actually been spent helping people instead?

Sadly, the game of politics has become all about money these days.  The candidate that raises the most money wins the vast majority of the time, and my advice for anyone that is planning to run for office is to raise as much money as possible.

As for the stock market, the ridiculous bubble that we are witnessing at the moment will inevitably collapse, and it is entirely possible that these election results could be a trigger event.

But whether it happens this week, this month, this year or some time later, there is no possible way that stock prices can stay at such absurdly inflated levels.

Even if the stock market fell 50 percent, stocks would still be overvalued based on historical norms.

Never before in U.S. history have we been more perfectly primed for a stock market collapse, and it isn’t going to take very much to push us over the edge.

For the moment, we are watching Georgia, but there will be many more pivotal moments as we continue to roll through the early stages of 2021.

***Michael’s new book entitled “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.***

About the Author: My name is Michael Snyder and my brand new book entitled “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America” is now available on Amazon.com.  In addition to my new book, I have written four others that are available on Amazon.com including The Beginning Of The End, Get Prepared Now, and Living A Life That Really Matters. (#CommissionsEarned)  By purchasing the books you help to support the work that my wife and I are doing, and by giving it to others you help to multiply the impact that we are having on people all over the globe.  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, Twitter and Parler, and any way that you can share these articles with others is a great help.  During these very challenging times, people will need hope more than ever before, and it is our goal to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with as many people as we possibly can.

The United States Has Become A Banana Republic

If we continue destroying the U.S. dollar at our current pace, toilet paper will eventually be more valuable than U.S. dollars.  I know that sounds absolutely crazy, but it is true.  Once the COVID pandemic hit the United States, those that control the levers of power in this country decided to go “full Weimar” and they never looked back.  As a result, the size of our money supply is rising at a rate that would have been unimaginable just a few short years ago.  To illustrate what I am talking about, I would like for you to check out this chart that was posted on Twitter by James Turk.  As you can see, M1 was up by more than 50 percent in 2020.

We’ve never had a year like that in all of U.S. history.  What we are doing is literally insane, but most Americans aren’t even aware of what is happening because the mainstream media isn’t talking about it.

If you are not familiar with “M1”, here is a definition that comes from Investopedia…

M1 is the money supply that is composed of physical currency and coin, demand deposits, travelers’ checks, other checkable deposits, and negotiable order of withdrawal (NOW) accounts. M1 includes the most liquid portions of the money supply because it contains currency and assets that either are or can be quickly converted to cash. However, “near money” and “near, near money,” which fall under M2 and M3, cannot be converted to currency as quickly.

When new money enters the system, every dollar that you are currently holding becomes less valuable.

And if your paycheck does not rise at the same rate that the money supply is rising, that means that your paycheck becomes less valuable as well.

It is helpful to think of our money system as a pie.  When more dollars are added to the pie, your share of the pie steadily becomes smaller.

So who does benefit when the pie is expanded?

The ultra-wealthy do, and I will discuss that more below.

But first, I wanted to share another chart with you.  The first chart from James Turk showed how M1 has been rising on a percentage basis, and this next chart which comes directly from the Federal Reserve shows how M1 has been rising on an absolute basis…

Just look at that for a moment.

It truly is breathtaking.  M1 has literally been rising at almost a vertical rate, and it makes all of the inflation that has come before look almost meaningless.

This is why the stock market keeps hitting record high after record high.  Stocks started to crash when COVID first started to spread in the United States, and the Federal Reserve decided to do whatever was necessary to rescue the markets.  The “unprecedented” response that we witnessed ended up being “a key driver of billionaire wealth” in 2020…

A key driver of billionaire wealth concentration was the unprecedented monetary policy response to stabilize financial markets in the early days of the pandemic, which spurred the stock market’s gravity-defying rise. When Wall Street was on the verge of panic in March, the Federal Reserve intervened with the promise of low rates and an open-ended liquidity spigot.

In addition, Congress just kept passing “stimulus package” after “stimulus package” in a desperate attempt to “rescue” the economy.

But in the process they borrowed and spent trillions of dollars that we did not have, and that also helped to fuel our transition into hyperinflation.

The good news is that hyperinflation is not showing up at the grocery store or at Walmart yet.  Eventually it will happen, but so far consumer prices are just rising at a pace that is quite a bit brisker than usual.  Where we are seeing hyperinflation is in stock prices, high end real estate in rural and suburban areas, and in other areas of the economy that the ultra-wealthy have been pouring their money into.

Despite the fact that we just endured one of the worst economic years in U.S. history, 2020 was actually a banner year for billionaires…

Between roughly mid-March and Dec. 22, the United States gained 56 new billionaires, according to the Institute for Policy Studies, bringing the total to 659. The wealth held by that small cadre of Americans has jumped by more than $1 trillion in the months since the pandemic began.

According to a December report issued jointly by Americans for Tax Fairness and the Institute for Policy Studies using data compiled by Forbes, America’s billionaires hold roughly $4 trillion in wealth — a figure roughly double what the 165 million poorest Americans are collectively worth. The 10 richest billionaires have a combined net worth of more than $1 trillion.

Last year the rich got a whole lot richer, and the poor got a whole lot poorer.

As I discussed the other day, 2020 was a “personal financial disaster” for 55 percent of all Americans.  The year ended with close to 20 million Americans still receiving government unemployment benefits, and poverty and homelessness have been exploding all around us.

In some cases, people were waiting in lines that were up to 12 hours long just to get a couple of bags of groceries at food banks around the nation.  We haven’t seen anything like this since the Great Depression of the 1930s, and many are expecting things to get even worse in 2021.

And with each passing day, more businesses are closing and more Americans are being laid off.

The retail sector has been hit particularly hard.  The following comes from Axios…

Malls are going belly up. Familiar names like J.C. Penney, Neiman Marcus and J. Crew have filed for bankruptcy. Increasingly, Americans’ shopping choices will boil down to a handful of internet Everything Stores and survival-of-the-fittest national chains.

And what we have experienced so far is just the tip of the iceberg.  One recent report projected that “100,000 brick-and-mortar U.S. retail stores will close by 2025”…

A research report from UBS predicts that 100,000 brick-and-mortar U.S. retail stores will close by 2025, in a trend that started before the pandemic and has accelerated amid coronavirus-related shutdowns.

Our national landscape is already littered with abandoned stores and restaurants, and they are telling us that it is only going to get worse.

What is our country going to look like as this process plays out?

Of course our authorities will just respond to every new crisis by printing even more money.

That is what they did down in Venezuela, and now just about everyone in Venezuela is a millionaire.

But most of those “millionaires” are living in crushing poverty because the money is absolutely worthless.

Sadly, many other countries are doing the same thing that the U.S. is doing, and so this hyperinflationary spiral is not likely to end any time soon.

But let there be no doubt that we are also in a global economic depression.  Global GDP is about 8 percent lower than it was before the pandemic started, and the outlook for 2021 does not look promising at all.

If you think that there is a way for this economic story to end well, just go back and look at the M1 chart from the Federal Reserve one more time.

Every other time this has been tried in human history, the story has ended badly.

Our story is going to end badly too, and every American needs to get prepared to survive in a very painful hyperinflationary environment.

***Michael’s new book entitled “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.***

About the Author: My name is Michael Snyder and my brand new book entitled “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America” is now available on Amazon.com.  In addition to my new book, I have written four others that are available on Amazon.com including The Beginning Of The End, Get Prepared Now, and Living A Life That Really Matters. (#CommissionsEarned)  By purchasing the books you help to support the work that my wife and I are doing, and by giving it to others you help to multiply the impact that we are having on people all over the globe.  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, Twitter and Parler, and any way that you can share these articles with others is a great help.  During these very challenging times, people will need hope more than ever before, and it is our goal to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with as many people as we possibly can.

A Nation Divided Shall Surely Fall

It is often said that a house divided will surely fall, and the same thing can now be said for the United States as a whole.  If there is anything that this election has made clear, it is the fact that there is little hope of healing the very deep divisions that exist in our country.  Most of those on the political left absolutely hate those on the political right, and most of those on the political right absolutely hate those on the political left.  But it isn’t as if the two opposing sides are even united.  The radical left is absolutely disgusted with “moderate Democrats” such as Joe Biden and is very much looking forward to the day when their “progressive revolution” finally triumphs in America.  Meanwhile, the right is hopelessly divided into countless political, religious and economic factions, and there is endless conflict between “conservatives” that are pro-Trump and those that are anti-Trump.  Over the past 30 years, not much has actually gotten done in D.C., but what little has been accomplished has almost always involved more spending, more debt and more socialism.

One of the reasons why the United States became such a great nation is because originally we were united by a core set of values and principles.  In the beginning, everything was about faith, family and freedom.  Our notions of right and wrong were defined by the Christian faith, the family was the most important institution in our society, and early Americans were desperate for freedom after experiencing deep oppression over in Europe.

But now we have completely abandoned all of that.  The Christian faith has been relentlessly pushed to the fringes of public life, the traditional family unit is mocked while rampant sexual immorality is celebrated all over America, and with each passing day our freedoms are being eroded even more.

At this point, our Constitution has essentially been relegated to being “just a piece of paper” that sits in the National Archives.  It has been trampled on over and over again in recent years, and the courts do not seem to care.

In fact, much of the time it is the courts that are doing the trampling.

We have now gotten to a point where our nation is almost ungovernable.  When Barack Obama first entered the White House, millions upon millions of Americans did not consider him to be a legitimate president.  Then when Donald Trump won the election in 2016, even more Americans did not recognize the legitimacy of his presidency.  Of course that trend is only going to intensify now that Biden is being installed as president.  According to one brand new survey, a whopping 82 percent of all Trump supporters do not believe that Biden is the “legitimate winner of the 2020 election”…

A strong majority of Donald Trump supporters reject the legitimacy of Joe Biden as President-elect, with many citing election irregularities and the most pervasive censorship campaign in American history in support of Biden on the part of Big Tech companies.

A poll released Sunday by CBS News reveals that 82% of self-identifying Trump supporters do not recognize Biden as the “legitimate winner of the 2020 election.”

Of course if the election results were reversed and Donald Trump was given another four years, a similar percentage of Democrats would almost certainly not be willing to recognize the legitimacy of Trump’s victory.

No matter who is in the White House from now on, tens of millions of Americans are not going to accept that individual as being legitimate.

And thanks to the events of the past several weeks, the election fraud that has been going on for decades in this country has now been exposed for everyone to see.  From this point forward, a very high percentage of Americans will not have any faith that our elections are fair.

If people don’t believe in the system, it is just a matter of time before it completely fails.

John Adams once made the following statement…

Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.

Today, the American people are neither moral nor religious.  Instead, we have evolved into an “idiocracy” that is dominated by power-hungry control freaks.

If you go back and read the extremely eloquent things that our founders had to say in their time, you will quickly realize that the way that we speak and write today is completely different.  If they could have traveled to our time and interacted with us, we would have seemed like cavemen to them.  Most of us can barely hold conversations with others, and when we do it is mostly just a bunch of unintelligible gibberish.

But even though we have been dramatically “dumbed down” over the decades, if we could at least try to get along with one another we could still have a functional society.

Sadly, I have never seen more hatred in our country than I am seeing now, and it just keeps on growing.

You would think that Democrats would have an interest in at least trying to pull the country together, but instead they just keep rubbing their “victory” in the faces of their enemies.  For example, just consider something that Debra Messing just said…

The “Will & Grace” star — one of Hollywood’s most vocal Trump critics — expressed a desire for the president to “live a long life in prison” in a tweet to her more than 677,000 followers last week.

She called Trump “a weak, scared, stupid, inept, negligent, vindictive, narcissistic, criminal” before writing she hoped he became “the most popular boyfriend to the all inmates.”

Can you feel the love in those words?

Yes, let the healing begin.

More blood was spilled on the streets of D.C. over the weekend, and the left and the right will continue to go after one another in the weeks and months ahead.  We have now entered a period of semi-permanent civil unrest in this country, and what we have experienced so far is just the beginning.

If we would return to the values and principles that our nation was founded upon, our future could be very different.

But that is not what the American people seem to want.

So we will continue to steamroll toward oblivion, and there is no future for our nation if we stay on the road that we are currently on.

***Michael’s new book entitled “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.***

About the Author: My name is Michael Snyder and my brand new book entitled “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America” is now available on Amazon.com.  In addition to my new book, I have written four others that are available on Amazon.com including The Beginning Of The End, Get Prepared Now, and Living A Life That Really Matters. (#CommissionsEarned)  By purchasing the books you help to support the work that my wife and I are doing, and by giving it to others you help to multiply the impact that we are having on people all over the globe.  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, Twitter and Parler, and any way that you can share these articles with others is a great help.  During these very challenging times, people will need hope more than ever before, and it is our goal to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with as many people as we possibly can.

20 things that you must believe in order to convince yourself that everything is going to turn out okay somehow

Despite everything that we have already been through in 2020, the dominant narrative in our society right now is that everything is going to be just fine once we get past our temporary problems.  So many people that I hear from can’t understand why I am so “negative” about the future, because they are completely convinced that really great days are just around the corner.  As odd as this may sound, we are seeing this sort of wild optimism among both Democrats and Republicans, Christians and atheists, capitalists and communists.  Of course about half the country will have their optimistic hopes for the future brutally crushed by the results of the upcoming election, but we aren’t there yet.  For now, both sides are absolutely convinced that they are going to win, and both sides are envisioning a wonderful new era for our nation in which their values reign triumphant.

If only things were that easy.

The truth is that many of our largest problems have been steadily growing for decades, and they aren’t going to magically disappear just because a particular candidate wins an election.  Our debt levels are absolutely exploding, our economy has plunged into a depression, there is widespread civil unrest in our streets, our nation is more divided than it has ever been in my entire lifetime, and our society is literally coming apart at the seams as just about every form of evil that you can possibly imagine is growing rapidly all around us.

But there are a whole lot of people out there that want to stick their heads in the sand and pretend that everything is going to be just fine.

If you would like to be just like them, the following are 20 things that you must believe in order to convince yourself that everything is going to turn out okay somehow…

#1 “Being 27 trillion dollars in debt is not a problem.  We can go into as much debt as we want, and future generations of Americans won’t mind at all that we are dumping all of our bills on them.”

#2 “The fact that the Federal Reserve creates trillions of dollars out of thin air whenever a major crisis erupts doesn’t really matter.  We can debase the reserve currency of the world as much as we want and the rest of the globe will continue to use it and the inflation rate in this country will never get out of control.”

#3 “Antifa is just an idea, and all of the rioting, looting and violence will somehow magically come to an end after the upcoming election.”

#4 “When I see people smashing windows, setting buildings on fire and shooting at police officers, I just remember to remind myself that those are really just peaceful protesters.”

#5 “It is perfectly okay that a former intern for Joe Biden will moderate the next presidential debate.  He has promised that he will be perfectly neutral, and I believe him.”

#6 “Kamala Harris will never become president if Joe Biden wins the election, because Joe Biden is so strong and vigorous that he could easily make it through two terms.”

#7 “The Democrats would never pack the Supreme Court, because Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are way too decent to ever allow that to happen.”

#8 “Once the election is over, the big social media companies will give us our freedom of speech back because that is the right thing to do.”

#9 “It makes perfect sense that the stock market has soared to record highs while the real economy has plunged into a horrifying depression.  This isn’t a bubble, and stock prices will just keep going up indefinitely.”

#10 “It is perfectly okay that 40 percent of U.S. children are being born outside of marriage.  America can certainly prosper without strong marriages and strong families because so many other great civilizations have shown that it can be done.”

#11 “Even though study after study has shown that antibodies fade very rapidly and that any immunity is very short-lived, a vaccine will save us from this pandemic.”

#12 “Once this virus has been eradicated, they won’t make us wear masks anymore, and they certainly wouldn’t try to force people to take vaccines if they don’t want them.”

#13 “Now that everyone has seen how much chaos this pandemic has caused, evil people would never purposely release more deadly viruses because they wouldn’t want to kick us while we are down.”

#14 “There is no need to worry that our relationships with Russia and China have gone down the tubes, because our military is so strong that nobody would ever dare getting into a military conflict with us.”

#15 “Even though the head of the UN World Food Program is warning that there will be famines of ‘biblical proportions’, I am sure that any food shortages are just temporary and everyone in the world will have plenty of food to eat in 2021 and beyond.”

#16 “More than 60 million Americans have filed new claims for unemployment benefits this year, but most of those jobs will quickly come back, and we are on the verge of the greatest era of economic prosperity in U.S. history.”

#17 “The rapid rise in crime rates in cities all over the nation is just temporary.  I am sure that things will go back to normal in 2021.”

#18 “We can ignore the hundreds of earthquakes that are shaking the west coast, because ‘the Big One’ probably won’t happen for thousands of years.”

#19 “The fact that tens of millions of Americans will be mailing in their ballots won’t cause any issues at all.  All of the ballots will be counted quickly, efficiently and accurately, and the American people will remain perfectly calm while we wait for days or even weeks to find out the winner of the presidential election.”

#20 “Even though more than 60 million children have already been aborted, and even though every form of evil that you can possibly imagine is exploding all around us, there will never be any serious consequences for our actions and the greatest days for America are still ahead of us even though we completely refuse to change our ways.”

***Michael’s new book entitled “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.***

About the Author: My name is Michael Snyder and my brand new book entitled “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America” is now available on Amazon.com.  In addition to my new book, I have written four others that are available on Amazon.com including The Beginning Of The End, Get Prepared Now, and Living A Life That Really Matters. (#CommissionsEarned)  By purchasing the books you help to support the work that my wife and I are doing, and by giving it to others you help to multiply the impact that we are having on people all over the globe.  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 a great help.  During these very challenging times, people will need hope more than ever before, and it is our goal to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with as many people as we possibly can.

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