Bankruptcy
To even be able to afford just a modestly-priced, average-sized home in America today, one must make at least $106,000 per year. Back in 2020, that figure was just $59,000 per year.
And how about fast food? The overrated burger chain Five Guys now charges more than $20 for a meager burger, fries and drink. This, despite continued claims from Washington that things are looking on the up and up.
https://www.naturalnews.com/2024-03-25-young-americans-wont-own-homes-wall-street-fed.html
If you are an American with no real assets and even an above-standard-fare white collar job, your chances of ever being able to afford a home are slim to none.
Since January 2020 when the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) “pandemic” was first launched, the average monthly mortgage payment has nearly doubled, increasing by 96 percent in just four years. Back then, a typical buyer paid just under $1,100 a month for a mortgage with 10 percent down – today, that average has ballooned to $2,200 a month, which is well above the 30 percent of median income that was once thought to constitute an “affordable” housing cost in America.
The average 30-year fixed-rate mortgage is around seven percent, and despite promises that rates will soon go down, it does not appear that this will realistically happen anytime soon unless the country wants to see massive hyperinflation.
What are today’s young people supposed to do? Not much other than slave away in vain while those with all the assets continue adding to their stockpiles. Welcome to third-world America, compliments of Wall Street and the private central banking cartel known as the Federal Reserve.
(Related: You know the economy is bad when even Dollar Tree is having to close stores.)
America is done
Whenever the system finds itself in a financial bind, the powers that be typically flood the market with more cash. This creates an inflationary trend that benefits Wall Street but not Main Street, the latter being the bread and butter of what makes up a true economy.
The economy of America today is fake in that it is mostly just paper “money” circulating around that creates an illusion of value and wealth. When you pull back the curtain, you find that many Americans are up to their eyeballs in debt, and even corporate America is seeing major delinquencies at an ever-increasing rate.
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Try as they might to keep the stock market propped up and always climbing, in today’s climate primarily with just one big stock, Nvidia, the truth is that the emperor has no clothes. The American empire is dying, which is why the war drums are beating louder and louder all around the world.
To even be able to afford just a modestly-priced, average-sized home in America today, one must make at least $106,000 per year. Back in 2020, that figure was just $59,000 per year.
And how about fast food? The overrated burger chain Five Guys now charges more than $20 for a meager burger, fries and drink. This, despite continued claims from Washington that things are looking on the up and up.
February 2024 marked the worst February for layoffs since Challenger, Gray & Christmas first started keeping records. This is a sign that the labor market is deteriorating as well amid rising inflation and interest rates.
Challenger, Gray & Christmas found that companies planned a whopping 84,638 job cuts in February, a three percent increase from the month prior and a nine percent increase from the same time last year.
“It marked the highest layoff total for the month of February in data going back to 2009,” one report explains.
It turns out that even college-degreed young people with strong drive and motivation are unable to find any kind of viable position to start a life. This as rent prices soar, leaving them jobless, homeless and ultimately hopeless.
What does the next generation of Americans have to look forward to? Not much. Poverty, joblessness, homelessness, and apparently bug-eating are the only thing on the menu for them. So much for being the land of opportunity.
The American economy is running on fumes. Find out more at Collapse.news.
Sources for this article include:
The US federal government’s debt stood at just over $30 trillion at the end of January 2022, and reached a new record of $33 trillion by September 15. Debt servicing could cost the United States almost a third of budget revenues
Jan 28, 2024
MOSCOW (Sputnik) – The chairman and CEO of the US bank, JPMorgan Chase, Jamie Dimon said that the US economy is heading towards a “cliff” due to the record growth of the national debt, which currently stands at over $34 trillion.
On Thursday, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen called the sum of the US national debt a “scary number,” but one that is manageable.
“It is a cliff, we see the cliff. It’s about 10 years out, we’re going 60 miles an hour [towards it],” Dimon was quoted as saying by Fox News on Saturday.
‘The Empire is Over’: America’s Long Economic Decline
He noted that the debt-to-GDP ratio is now above 100%, whereas in 1982 it was 35%.
The US federal government’s debt stood at just over $30 trillion at the end of January 2022, and reached a new record of $33 trillion by September 15. Debt servicing could cost the United States almost a third of budget revenues, Sputnik experts previously calculated.
Over 55,000 French businesses closed their doors in 2023, the Bank of France says
https://www.rt.com/business/590182-france-bankruptcies-record-high/
Jan 5, 2024
© Getty Images / OceanProd
More than 55,000 businesses were shut down in France in 2023, marking a record high for company closures since 2017, according to data compiled at the close of December by the Bank of France.
The statistics released by the regulator on Saturday show that 55,492 companies, on average, have faced bankruptcy or liquidation over the past 12 months.
Although the recorded surge in closures was significant, the Bank of France noted that the level is still below the average annual bankruptcy filings of 59,342 scored between 2010 and 2019. The pandemic years saw a considerably lower number of companies going out of business, almost half of the current figures.
According to the report, mostly small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) were bearing the brunt of the closures in 2023. Businesses, employing up to 250 people, accounted for vast majority of the total, with 55,435 closures.
Meanwhile, medium and large firms with over 250 employees, also saw an increase in closures, the regulator noted, adding that their numbers reached 57, doubling from 2022.
READ MORE: EU corporate bankruptcies surge to highest since 2015 – report
The negative trend became the most notable in the restaurant and hotel business, where the number of busts surged 44.6% year-on-year, while the sector of information and communication technologies saw an increase of 44.4%.
The country’s agricultural sector was the only one recording a drop of 1.3% in the number of bankruptcy filings.
In December, the Financial Times reported that the number of corporate bankruptcies across the world exceeded levels reached during the 2008 global financial crisis.
Analysts attribute the surge to higher key rates, as well as self-liquidation of so-called ‘zombie firms,’ which had pulled through the Covid era only thanks to government support.
US national debt has reached a record high – hitting $34 trillion for the first time in history.
https://www.shtfplan.com/headline-news/americas-empire-of-money-has-reached-the-endgame
Jan 5, 2024
This article was originally published by Michael Snyder at The Economic Collapse Blog.
We did it, Joe! It took a tremendous push down the stretch, but the U.S. national debt was able to hit the 34 trillion dollar mark before the end of 2023. At this moment, I am just so overwhelmed that I don’t know who to thank first.
Over the past few years, Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Chucky Schumer, Nancy Pelosi, Kevin McCarthy, and so many other hard-working spenders have been instrumental in helping us reach this remarkable achievement. And we never would have gotten here without the relentless help of CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and all of the other mainstream news outlets that kept assuring the American people that it was okay to steal trillions of dollars from our children and our grandchildren.
Of course, I am being quite facetious. The truth is that what we are doing to future generations of Americans is beyond criminal. We are literally committing national suicide, but each election cycle most of the same big-spending politicians just keep winning over and over again.
Those on the other side would argue that it has been absolutely necessary to borrow and spend so much money.
If we had not propped up the U.S. economy with giant mountains of borrowed money, it would have collapsed long ago.
In addition, spending so much money allows us to project military and economic power all over the planet. If we only spent what we brought in, America’s standing in the world would be greatly reduced.
Having the primary reserve currency of the world is an enormous source of power, but now that power is fading.
Nations all over the globe are starting to move away from using the U.S. dollar in international trade, and they are becoming a lot more hesitant to buy our debt.
You can only borrow and spend so much before the entire Ponzi scheme collapses, and at this moment we are more than 34 trillion dollars in debt…
US national debt has reached a record high – hitting $34 trillion for the first time in history.
Data published by the Treasury Department Tuesday showed that outstanding federal borrowing soared to $34.001 trillion on December 29, just weeks ahead of Congress deadlines for new federal funding plans.
The staggering figure, which is a major point of contention between Republicans and Democrats, is equal to $101,233 in federal debt for every person in America, according to the Peter G. Peterson Foundation.
So if there are four people living in your household, your share of the national debt is more than $400,000.
And every day the debt gets even larger. As Wolf Richter has pointed out, the size of the national debt has increased by 2.5 trillion dollars in just the last seven months…
The total US national debt spiked by $1.0 trillion in 15 weeks since September 15, to $34.0 trillion, according to the Treasury Department’s figures this afternoon. In the seven months since the debt ceiling was lifted, the national debt spiked by $2.5 trillion.
These are huge gigantic numbers that are piling up as a result of the incredible hard-to-fathom daredevil reckless shake-your-head deficit spending by Congress.
Overall, the U.S. national debt has grown by $6.25 trillion since Joe Biden entered the White House.
It took the first 225 years of U.S. history for the U.S. national debt to reach the 6 trillion dollar mark, and now we have added more than 6 trillion dollars to the debt in less than 3 years.
This is what the endgame looks like.
We are in a debt spiral that is totally out of control, and there is no way that this story is going to end well.
And despite the fact that we are endlessly pumping colossal piles of cash into the economy, our economic conditions continue to deteriorate.
On Wednesday, we learned that U.S. job openings have fallen “to the lowest level in more than two years”…
U.S. job openings dropped in November to the lowest level in more than two years, the latest evidence that the Federal Reserve’s interest-rate hike campaign is continuing to cool the labor market.
That is a sign that the economy is getting worse.
And more large companies continue to lay off workers. For example, Xerox just announced that it will be laying off 15 percent of its workforce…
Xerox on Wednesday announced it will cut 15% of its workforce as part of a plan to implement a new organizational structure and operating model.
Xerox, which offers digital printing and document management technologies, had about 20,500 employees as of Dec. 31, 2022, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Based on this figure, Wednesday’s layoffs will affect about 3,075 employees.
Shares of Xerox closed down more than 12% following the announcement Wednesday.
So what can we do to “get the economy going again”?
Well, we can follow the example of the federal government and borrow and spend even more money.
Of course, much of the nation is already drowning in debt. According to one recent survey, only about half the country will be able to pay off their December credit card balances in full…
Only half of America’s credit card customers believe they can pay off their December balance in full, according to an industry index, signaling a low ebb in “credit card confidence” as the nation emerges from the holidays.
The LendingTree Credit Card Confidence Index, a monthly survey published since 2018 by the personal finance site, dipped to 51% in December, an all-time low.
In a nationally representative survey of 1,514 cardholders, only 51% voiced confidence that they could pay off their card balance this month. In November, the Confidence Index stood at 58%.
Our forefathers handed us the keys to the greatest economic machine in world history.
But that was never enough for us.
We always had to have more, and so we just kept borrowing and spending.
Now the endgame has arrived, and it is going to be excruciatingly painful.
U.S. consumers are drowning in record levels of debt, U.S. corporations are drowning in record levels of debt, state and local governments are drowning in record levels of debt, and the federal government is drowning in record levels of debt.
America’s empire of money was nice while it lasted, but now the jig is up and the collapse that is looming is truly going to be one for the history books.
They can print all the imaginary money they want but the US is bankrupt.
David Paulides has moved to Rumble. He could not stand the YouTube censorship.
The annual cost of government borrowing has doubled in the past 19 months
This is dangerous because the US, historically, goes to war when it needs more money. If the world would call in the US debt, the US would collapse as it is bankrupt.
Lou
https://www.rt.com/business/586771-us-debt-interest-payments-soaring/
Nov 12, 2023
© Getty Images/REB Images
US interest payments on its national debt are estimated to have surged above $1 trillion on an annualized basis as of the end of October, according to a Bloomberg report this week.
The calculations were based on US Treasury data, which discloses the government’s monthly outstanding debt balances and the average sum of interest it pays.
The annualized cost of debt has doubled in the past 19 months as rising interest rates have made borrowing more expensive and represented 15.9% of the entire federal budget for fiscal year 2022 as of last month, the outlet said.
“This high proportion of interest payments as a share of federal spending has precedent, as the portion before 2000 was over 14% in most years,” Bloomberg analysts wrote in a note.
READ MORE: US credit rating downgraded to ‘negative’
“The challenge for the government is tempering mandatory spending and trying to reduce the need to issue more debt. That’s the reason we see interest payments climbing even though we forecast lower Treasury yields.”
Concerns are mounting over US fiscal policy amid massive government borrowing and soaring interest payments on the debt pile, the outlet noted. The worsening dynamics already led Fitch Ratings agency to downgrade US government debt in August.
Washington will soon be unable to service its growing national debt, Dmitry Peskov has said
It does not matter, Dmitry, it’s all imaginary money anyway.
Lou
“The US national debt has risen so high that Washington will no longer be able to print any more dollars to service it, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said on Thursday.“
“I read recently that the United States spends about $200 million an hour on servicing its debt,” he said. “They will run out of paper soon,” he added.”
https://www.rt.com/business/586917-us-national-debt-kremlin/
Nov 9, 2023
© Mark Wilson/Getty Images
The US national debt has risen so high that Washington will no longer be able to print any more dollars to service it, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said on Thursday.
He was commenting on a statement made by his US counterpart John Kirby on Wednesday, that the US has already spent 96% of the funds allocated for Ukraine since early 2022, when its long-running tensions with neighbor Russia turned to armed conflict. When a reporter suggested that Washington could just print money indefinitely unless the printing press breaks down, Peskov pointed out that there will simply be no paper left.
“I read recently that the United States spends about $200 million an hour on servicing its debt,” he said. “They will run out of paper soon,” he added.
Currently, the US outstanding public debt amounts to roughly $33.6 trillion, after it exceeded its $31.4-trillion debt ceiling in January.
According to Congressional Budget Office data released earlier this year, interest payments on the national debt amounted to $475 billion in fiscal year 2022. That translates to about $1.3 billion per day and approximately $54.2 million per hour.
Over the past year the federal government’s borrowing costs have increased rapidly due to a series of interest-rate hikes, and will continue growing, the CBO warned.
READ MORE: US debt to top $50 trillion – BoA
Within the next 30 years, servicing the national debt will become the largest expenditure in the federal budget, outpacing healthcare and social security, it added.
Debt.com chairman Howard Dvorkin told CNBC, “Consumers are maintaining and supporting their lifestyles using credit card debt.”
In other words, the economic growth President Biden and others keep bragging about is merely a function of borrowing. This is not exactly indicative of a healthy economy, and it’s not sustainable.
The US owes about 50 trillion dollars and its population debt-enslaved, it is bankrupt. The only way out is war and more wars.
Lou
https://www.infowars.com/posts/americas-growing-economy-brought-to-you-by-visa-and-mastercard/
by Michael Maharrey | Schiff Gold
Nov 9, 2023
According to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Americans paid $130 billion in interest and fees on their credit cards over the last year.
That was the largest amount on record.
Mainstream financial network pundits and government officials keep telling us that the economy is chugging along because Americans continue to spend money. But it’s clear that borrowing is the only thing sustaining this spending spree.
Meanwhile, the “resilient” American consumer is drowning under a surging tidal wave of debt.
Total household debt rose by $228 billion in the third quarter, setting a new record of $17.29 trillion, according to the latest data from the New York Federal Reserve.
Surging credit card balances led the way, increasing by 4.7% to a record $1.08 trillion. Year-on-year, credit card debt spiked by $154 billion. That was the biggest annual increase since 1999.
The bigger problem is the double whammy of rising debt and rising interest rates. Average credit card interest rates eclipsed the previous record high of 17.87% months ago. The average annual percentage rate (APR) currently stands at 20.72%.
According to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Americans paid $130 billion in interest and fees on their credit cards over the last year. That was the largest amount on record.
As prices skyrocketed last year, Americans blew through their savings to make ends meet. Aggregate savings peaked at $2.1 trillion in August 2021. As of June, the San Francisco Fed estimated that aggregate savings had dropped to $190 billion.
In other words, Americans ate away $1.9 trillion in savings in just two years.
Then they turned to credit cards.
“People have to deal with this somehow. After blowing through savings to buy essentials, they do what’s next: Find sources to borrow,” Villanova University finance professor John Sedunov told ABC News.
According to MarketWatch, “Americans appear to be relying more on debt to pay for their purchases. They are also using more ‘buy now and pay later’ plans.”
New York Fed economic research advisor Donghoon Lee also credited the resilience of the American consumer to Visa and Mastercard.
Credit card balances experienced a large jump in the third quarter, consistent with strong consumer spending and real GDP growth.”
Debt.com chairman Howard Dvorkin told CNBC, “Consumers are maintaining and supporting their lifestyles using credit card debt.”
In other words, the economic growth President Biden and others keep bragging about is merely a function of borrowing. This is not exactly indicative of a healthy economy, and it’s not sustainable.
Consumer spending, which we all know is the base of GDP, is really being held up by credit card debt and maybe it’s not sustainable,” American University economic professor Mary Hansen told ABC News.
There are some signs that the debt-fueled spending spree is slowing down. After rising by over 13% in August, revolving credit growth (primarily credit card balances) slowed to 2.9% in September, according to the latest Federal Reserve consumer credit data. This could signal a significant slowdown in spending. That would mean an end to the mythical “strong” economic growth.
Americans aren’t just borrowing using credit cards. Every other category of debt also increased in the third quarter.
Mortgage balances rose by $126 billion from the previous quarter and stood at $12.14 trillion at the end of September. The big increase in mortgage balances happened despite a drop in new mortgage originations, reflecting rapidly increasing mortgage rates.
Despite the higher rates, more Americans appear to be tapping into their home equity to make ends meet. Balances on home equity lines of credit (HELOC) increased by $9 billion and now stand at $349 billion.
Auto loan balances rose by $13 billion and now stand at $1.6 trillion. Auto loan debt has grown consistently since 2011.
Outstanding student loan debt increased by $30 billion and stood at $1.6 trillion at the end of Q3.
There are signs that Americans are starting to crack under the strain of this debt load. Delinquencies rose across all debt categories.
As of the end of September, 3% of outstanding debt was in some stage of delinquency. According to the New York Fed, delinquency transition rates increased for most debt types except student loans and home equity lines of credit.
The report noted a big jump in credit card delinquency, particularly in the 30-39 year old age range.
The continued rise in credit card delinquency rates is broad-based across area income and region, but particularly pronounced among millennials and those with auto loans or student loans,” Lee said.
Missed federal student loan payments will not be reported to credit bureaus until Q4 2024.
According to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, “nearly one-tenth of credit card users find themselves in ‘persistent debt’ where they are charged more in interest and fees each year than they pay toward the principal — a pattern that is increasingly difficult to break.”
The surge in household debt signals that Americans are struggling to make ends meet as prices rapidly rise, and they’re burying themselves in debt to keep their heads above water. The stimulus checks are long gone. Savings are being depleted. The average person has no choice but to borrow.
Debt is creating an illusion of prosperity and economic growth. The question is how long can that last?
Rising levels of debt are also a problem for the Federal Reserve as it tries to battle sticky price inflation with higher interest rates. The longer rates stay elevated, the harder it will be for people to maintain these massive levels of debt. At some point, something has to break.
At this point, we are dealing with imaginary numbers.
The country’s $31.4 trillion debt ceiling was exceeded in January and later scrapped altogether until 2025
https://www.rt.com/business/586838-us-debt-surge-trillions/
Nov 9, 2023
© Getty Images / dblight
The US national debt could surge by $20 trillion over the next decade, the Bank of America (BoA) said in a note on Tuesday, citing data from the Congressional Budget Office.
According to the forecast, the current outstanding public debt amounts to roughly $33.6 trillion, but at the pace it is growing and due to “fiscal excess in the 2020s,” it is likely to grow by $5.2 billion daily for the next 10 years, which would put it at around $54 trillion by 2033.
According to BoA, one of the factors leading to a further surge in debt is the sharp increase in the federal deficit, which jumped by $320 billion to $1.7 trillion this year, forcing the Treasury Department to sell trillions of dollars worth of fresh bonds. The rise in annual interest payments caused by soaring bond yields is also weighing on the federal budget and widening deficits, the bank noted.
“US public debt is… more than the combined GDPs of China, Japan, Germany, and India,” Bank of America investment strategist Michael Hartnett noted in the forecast. He warned, however, that Washington was unlikely to stop taking loans even if the federal deficit is contained because borrowing is seen as a means to fuel economic growth and help drive the circulation of money.
“Likely central banks may simply bail out governments in coming years via quantitative easing and the introduction of yield curve control,” Hartnett added.
READ MORE: Experts worried about US, UK and Italian economies – Reuters
The US exceeded its debt ceiling, which was legally set at $31.4 trillion, in January 2023. After months of warnings of an imminent and economically disastrous default from the US Treasury, President Joe Biden in June signed a bipartisan debt bill that allowed the limit to be lifted until January 2025. This effectively allowed the government to keep borrowing without limits through next year. Debt spiked to $32 trillion less than two weeks after the bill was approved and has been piling up ever since.
The US is now officially paying more in interest on its debt than on defense (and, as everyone knows, they spend A LOT on defense). Throughout history, this is often quite a telling sign that the end of an empire is approaching…
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/america-now-paying-more-interest-113000593.html
Oct 8, 2023
America’s gross national debt hit an eye-watering $33 trillion for the first time in September — mere months after eclipsing the $32 trillion mark earlier in the year.
The U.S. is also currently spending more to pay interest on the national debt than it does on national defense, according to the Treasury’s monthly statement.
In the current fiscal year through August, the Treasury has shelled out $807.84 billion in interest on its debt securities, while the Department of Defense’s budget for military programs totaled just $695.44 billion in the same period.
This is particularly alarming when you consider how much of the federal budget goes into defense, with the U.S. outspending every other country.
The last few years have been expensive
A deficit is what happens when the government spends more money in a fiscal year than it brings in through taxes — and the last few years have been expensive for the U.S.
Several large bills with hefty price tags have been approved since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, including the American Rescue Plan Act, which cost $1.9 trillion.
The Congressional Budget Office estimates the debt ceiling package that was signed into law this summer to prevent a national default could result in a $1.5 trillion decrease to the deficit over the next decade. However, the Committee for a Responsible Budget (CRFB), a nonprofit that addresses federal budget and fiscal issues, says savings could fall to $1 trillion depending on “side deals” that fall outside the agreement.
Continue:
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/america-now-paying-more-interest-113000593.html
The stage has been set for a societal meltdown of epic proportions
We Have A Real Life Nightmare On Our Hands (substack.com)
SEP 11, 2023
The stage has been set for a societal meltdown of epic proportions. When the United States went through the Great Depression of the 1930s, conditions were extremely rough, but our country was able to successfully weather the storm thanks to the relatively high character of the American people. Unfortunately, several generations later we are simply not made of the same stuff. Just about every form of evil that you can possibly imagine is absolutely exploding in our society today, and there is chaos in major cities from coast to coast. If things are this bad now, while economic conditions are still at least somewhat stable, what is going to happen when economic conditions get exceedingly harsh in this country?
Upgrade to paid
Already, crime is totally out of control in communities all over the nation. According to the Washington Post, homicides are up 29 percent in Washington D.C. so far this year, and robberies are up 67 percent…
The spike in felonies — homicides and robberies are up 29 and 67 percent from the same time period last year, police statistics show — is not the only data that is causing alarm. The number of juveniles arrested for carjacking has increased slightly since last year, with 41 of the 64 charged between the ages of 12 and 15. As of Aug. 31, a total of 81 minors had been shot in the city this year, compared with 66 over the same span last year and 37 in 2021.
While a preponderance of violence occurs where it often has — in poor neighborhoods on D.C.’s eastern edge — statistics show that the geography of crime has become more diffuse, with prosperous areas less immune than before.
Those are definitely very alarming numbers, but Washington D.C. is far from alone.
A crime wave has been steadily percolating all over America, and even young women are eagerly participating in the violence…
The shocking moment three women beat an Asian man with a metal pipe before taking off with his car has been caught on camera.
Danxin Shi, a rideshare driver, is no longer able to work after his vehicle was stolen by the gang about 5:30pm on Tuesday evening in crime-ridden, Dem-led Chicago.
Footage shows the moment the Chinatown resident, who lives West 22nd Place, parking his vehicle and walking along the street when he is struck with a weapon and shoved to the ground – where he is beaten repeatedly.
This makes me so sad.
Young women are not supposed to act like this.
But now we live in a society where all of the old rules have been thrown out.
In this environment, literally anything goes. Theft is going to cost U.S. retailers more than 100 billion dollars this year alone, and “flash robberies” that are conducted by mobs of young people have become a daily occurrence…
A group of ‘flash rob’ thieves stormed into a Los Angeles Macy’s department store at Northridge Mall on Sunday morning as they filled bags with $20,000 worth of perfume.
Cellphone video of the crime showed several men dressed in dark hoodies and blue medical face masks loading up bags of what appeared to be cologne and perfume merchandise.
Meanwhile, the worst drug crisis in the entire history of the United States just continues to escalate.
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Today, the heart of the city of Benjamin Franklin looks like something you would expect to see in a third-world country…
Disturbing new video from Philadelphia shows addicts on the street in a trance like state, passed out on the sidewalk in the city’s multiple homeless encampments.
In the Kensington neighborhood, the footage shows fires burning on trash littered sidewalks as groups of people set up camp.
Drug users are seen hunched over with no control of their limbs, while others are sprawled across the garbage covered streets.
Large groups have taken over the sidewalks, turning them into homeless encampments where many people live in their own filth.
But this isn’t just happening in our large metropolitan areas.
According to Zero Hedge, authorities are having to deal with “third-world country stuff” in Casper, Wyoming…
A city in Wyoming has been overwhelmed with a growing number of homeless people, who have damaged a local hotel that would require millions of dollars to fix and left hundreds of pounds of human feces in the downtown area, according to its mayor.
Casper Mayor Bruce Knell, in an interview with local news media Cowboy State Daily published on Aug. 31, said the city’s homeless population had topped about 200 people, creating “a mess” as they roam the city’s parks and streets.
“It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen. It’s third-world country stuff happening in Casper, Wyoming,” Mr. Knell said.
“They destroyed everything,” he added. “It’s horrible.”
With each passing day, conditions in this nation get even worse.
So what is going to happen when the economy finally tanks and people start getting really desperate?
You might want to start thinking about that because very hard times are clearly on the horizon.
When the economy slows down, there is less demand for rail transportation, and at this point, total combined U.S. rail traffic has fallen on a year-over-year basis for three months in a row…
“August was the third straight month in which total year-over-year U.S. rail carloads have fallen,” Association of American Railroads (AAR) Senior Vice President John T. Gray reported on Sept. 6. Total combined U.S. traffic for the first 35 weeks of 2023 was 16,173,208 carloads and intermodal units, a decrease of 4.9% compared to last year.
Even more troubling, credit card delinquencies and auto loan delinquencies have both hit levels that we haven’t seen in more than a decade…
This year, credit card delinquencies have hit 3.8%, while 3.6% have defaulted on their car loans, according to credit agency Equifax.
Both figures are the highest in more than 10 years.
“The increase in delinquencies and defaults is symptomatic of the tough decisions that these households are having to make right now — whether to pay their credit card bills, their rent or buy groceries,” Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, told the Washington Post.
We had a very sharp recession during the first two quarters of 2020, and then we had another relatively mild recession during the first two quarters of 2022.
Now it appears that a new downturn has begun, and it promises to be very painful.
But our population is clearly not prepared to handle what is ahead of us.
When economic conditions get extremely harsh, I expect that we will see a massive national temper tantrum, and it won’t be pretty.
Are you and your family prepared for that?
I hope so because the months and years in front of us are going to be full of surprises.
Greg Mannarino says that before the new fully controlled slave system is rolled out, the old slave system has to be destroyed by a crisis. For this reason, he believes the United States will default on its debt in order to crash the current system.
by Mac Slavo
May 9, 2023
Greg Mannarino says that before the new fully controlled slave system is rolled out, the old slave system has to be destroyed by a crisis. For this reason, he believes the United States will default on its debt in order to crash the current system.
“A crisis of epic proportions” is coming, so it’s time to prepare. “I think this threat is very real,” Mannarino says of the ruling class’s possible debt default. He gives is a “50/50 shot” of happening.
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“A U.S. debt default will have far-reaching ramifications here…if in fact, there is a U.S. debt default, the stock market would fall by a third in one day,” Mannarino says. The soonest the U.S. would default will be June 1st.
“If this lasted any length of time if this got drawn out, let’s say a week or two, the stock market will lose half its value,” he added. “This could play out to be a big crisis, and it may be exactly what they’re looking to do here.”
Mannarino adds that he’s not saying this is going to happen for sure, but there’s a “strong possibility” that this will be how the ruling class takes down the system. He also says that if you’re counting on a rate cut this summer, you shouldn’t. It’s not coming. “The Fed is going to keep the pressure on the middle class, in fact, increase that pressure on the middle class.”
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“The regional bank,” Mannario added with a laugh, “are getting spanked this morning…again, what are they doing? They are trying desperately to instill a sense of confidence in the system…it’s a con job on an epic scale here.”
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The ruling class, which includes the central banks, is bending and twisting the reality toward the new system. Recently, Mannarino said that the central banks are getting very close to rolling out the “endgame” slave system.
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The World Economic Forum has also said a fully controllable digital currency is inevitable. In order to maintain control over humanity, this next step is necessary.
This whole thing could get “very real, very fast.”
Experts warn of ‘cataclysmic’ scenario if world’s biggest economy fails to meet its debt obligations.
https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2023/5/10/what-happens-if-the-us-defaults-on-its-debt
May 10, 2023
By Megha Bahree
As a game of chicken plays out in Washington, DC, over whether to raise the limit on US government borrowing to avoid a default on its debt, the one thing that experts agree on is that a default would be catastrophic.
The United States hit its borrowing limit on January 19. Since then, the US Treasury has implemented a number of measures to avoid a default, but it is only a matter of days, or weeks at most, before those are exhausted and the US government is unable to pay what it owes.
Here’s an explainer on what happens if this unprecedented event takes place.
What are the chances that the US will indeed default?
No one really knows because it is “a political issue”, Lawrence J White, an economics professor at the Stern School of Business at New York University, told Al Jazeera.
“I keep hoping there will be a resolution, but this is a game of chicken, and usually somebody swerves and a head-on collision is avoided… but sometimes people go over the cliff, and that is the big worry,” he said.
To avoid a default, Congress would have to lift the debt ceiling, but Republicans are demanding spending cuts to do so. President Joe Biden, a Democrat, wants a simple vote in Congress that would only deal with raising the government’s debt limit.
Worry about the deadlock has amplified in the past few days as the so-called X-date – when the Treasury would run out of money to pay its bills – has moved up from mid-August to as early as June 1 on account of low tax collections in April, Bernard Yaros, assistant director at Moody’s Analytics, told Al Jazeera.
If the Treasury can limp along until mid-June, Yaros said, it will have a “surge” in tax receipts from businesses and individuals and close to $150bn in new extraordinary measures that will help it keep money flowing through late July or even early August.
But it is not clear it will get that breathing room.
What is the worst-case scenario?
The US goes into a weeks-long default with Republicans and Democrats digging in their heels.
Such a situation would be “a cataclysmic scenario” and be followed by a recession of the order of the financial crisis of 2008, Yaros said.
In such a scenario, the federal government would have to immediately slash its outlays and cut government spending.
As these cuts worked their way through the economy, “the hit to growth would be overwhelming,” Yaros and several Moody’s colleagues said in an analysis published in March.
Apart from this, financial markets would be in turmoil, interest rates would spike further and the strength of the dollar would decline, White said.
If the political deadlock drags out, interest rates will go even higher, dissuading people from borrowing or investing, White said.
“This will be echoed around the world,” he said. “This is not a good thing for anybody.”
A short breach
Even if the US were to fail to meet its obligations for only a number of days, there would still be consequences for the economy.
“The world will say we can’t rely on the US Treasury as much as we used to, and that will make people more reluctant to hold Treasury obligations,” White said.
“Interest rates for Treasury bills and bonds will go up and that will ultimately lead to a bigger tax burden for Americans.”
It could also fuel calls for alternatives to the US dollar, which for decades has been the unparalleled currency in international finance.
While it is unclear if credit rating agencies would downgrade Treasury debt if it fails to meet its obligations, any downgrade would set off a cascade of credit implications and downgrades on the debt of many other financial institutions, non-financial corporations, municipalities, infrastructure providers, structured finance transactions and other debt issuers, Moody’s has warned.
Those institutions that are backstopped by the US government – including mortgage financiers Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Federal Home Loan Bank – would likely suffer the biggest downgrades to their ratings.
“Despite lawmakers’ quick reversal in this scenario and our assumption that the rating agencies do not engage in downgrades, significant damage will have already been done,” Moody’s said.
“The fact that we haven’t even solved this position by now is not a good thing,” White said.
SOURCE: AL JAZEERA